Anecdotal Lincoln 

SPEECHES, STORIES AND YARNS 
OF THE "IMMORTAL ABE" 

INCLUDING 

stories of Lincoln's early life, stories of Lincoln 

as a lawyer, presidential incidents, stories 

of the war, lincoln's letters, and 

great speeches chronologically 

arranged, with 

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



PAUL SELBY 

Associate Editor of the Encyclopedia of Illinois 



FULLY ILLUSTRATED 



CHICAGO 
THOMPSON & THOMAS 

267 Wabash Avenue 
1900 



COPYRIGHT, igOO, BY 
THOMPSON AND THOMAS. 









C'- ' • 



PREFACE. 

In presenting this volume to the public the aim of 
its publishers has been to give the reader in a limited 
space the most interesting, entertaining, and concise 
work ever published on Lincoln. 

The biography contained in this work was written 
by the Hon. Paul Selby, a personal friend of Lincoln, 
and for many years Editor of the State Journal at 
Springfield, 111., Lincoln's home. 

The Stories, Anecdotes, and Yarns of Lincoln have 
been compiled from the most reliable sources, and are 
herein presented in an attractive form. 

The Great Speeches of Lincoln, which cannot fail to 
arouse the patriotism of the reader, are arranged in 
chronological order. 



CONTENTS. 

r*QB 

LIFE OF LINCOLN 13-44 

CHAPTER I. 

His Birth and Ancestry — His Autobiography ....13-18 

CHAPTER II. 

Life in Kentucky and Indiana 18-21 

CHAPTER III. 
Removal to Illinois — A second Flat-boat Voyage to New 

Orleans 21-24 

CHAPTER IV. 
Enters Politics— Begins the Study of Law 24-29 

CHAPTER V. 
As a Lawyer and Political Leader 29-31 

CHAPTER VI. 
Organkation of the Republican Party 3 I_ 34 

CHAPTER VII. 

House Divided against Itself Speech — The Lincoln-Douglas 

Debate of 1858 34-38 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Election to the Presidency — Administration — Death 38-44 

STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE 45-83 

Abe's Rebuke 46 

A Flat-boat Incident Illustrating Lincoln's Ready Ingenuity 63 
An Incident from Lincoln's Experience on a Mississippi 

Flat-boat 59 

An Unsuccessful Venture as a Merchant in New Salem 71 

A Wrestling Match' 64 

Books Read by Lincoln in His Early Life 45 

ft 



6 CONTENTS. 

Cool Under Difficulties 79 

"Honest Abe" as Village Postmaster 61 

How Lincoln Became a Captain in the Black Hawk War 72 

How Lincoln Earned His First Dollar 52 

How Lincoln Obtained the Name of "Honest Abe" 50 

How Lincoln Thrashed a Bully and Made a Life-long Friend 58 

Incident in the Black Hawk War 79 

Lincoln Applies for a Patent 74 

Lincoln Carries a Drunkard Eighty Rods on His Back 51 

Lincoln's Entrance into Public Life 75 

Lincoln's Name Good for a Bed 68 

Lincoln's Lizard Story 47 

Lincoln's Prophecy 57 

Lincoln the Tallest cf the Long Nine 74 

No Vices — Few Virtues 57 

"Thank you, I Never Drink" 80 

The First Meeting of a Future President and Governor 67 

The Lincoln-Shields Duel 80 

Young Lincoln Narrowly Escapes Death 54 

Young Lincoln Pulls Fodder Two Days for Damaged Books.. 53 

STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER 83-135 

"Adam's Ale," Lincoln's Only Beverage 125 

A Distinction with a Difference 88 

Advice to a Young Lawyer 90 

A Noted Horse Trade in which Lincoln Confessed that He 

Got the Worst of It 99 

A Pathetic Story of Lincoln's Disappointment in Failing to 

Secure the Support of the Springfield Ministry 100 

A Visit to the Five Points of Industry in New York 129 

Colonel Baker Defended by Lincoln no 

Considerations Shown to Relatives 99 

Crocodile and Negro 115 

Defeated l>y a Still- Hunt ' 107 

First Echoes from ChiacgO Convention 123 

"Hold On, Breeze" ixo 

"Honest Old Abe" 133 

How Lincoln Invested His First Five Hundred Dollars for 

the Benefit of His Step-Mother 87 



CONTENTS. 7 

How Lincoln Won the Nomination for Congress 107 

How Mrs. Lincoln Surprised Her Husband 98 

"I Am Not Fit for the Presidency"... 128 

Incidents of Lincoln's Home Life 104 

Lincoln and Finance 93 

Lincoln as a Lawyer 91 

Lincoln Defends a Widowed Pensioner with Success 97 

Lincoln Defends the Son of an Old Friend Indicted for 

Murder 94 

Lincoln's Knowledge of Human Nature 93 

Lincoln's Last Interview with Douglas 116 

Lincoln Rescues a Pig from a Bad Predicament 84 

Lincoln, the Student 83 

Mr. Lincoln's Vision 123 

"Nothing to Wear" 104 

Pen Picture of Lincoln, and His Speech in New York City... 116 

Remarks Uttered by Lincoln, 1858 119 

Six-Foot-Three Committee Man 128 

Slavery 120 

Stanton's First Impression of Lincoln 126 

That Stage-coach Ride 89 

The House Divided Against Itself 120 

The Old Sign, "Lincoln and Herndon" 133 

The Ugliest Man 130 

Trent Affair 119 

"Trusted Till Britchen Broke" 115 

Two Entertaining Anecdotes Illustrating Lincoln's Good 

Nature 126 

"Well, Speed, I'm Moved" 83 

"Whole Hog Jackson Man" 113 

INCIDENTS FROM THE PRESIDENTIAL CAREER 

OF LINCOLN 135-167 

An Incident in Lincoln's Second Inauguration 165 

A Petitioner's Sudden Change of Mind 151 

Cabinet Reconstruction 162 

Death of Lincoln's Favorite Son 159 

General Fiske's Story of the "Swearing Driver" 142 

Hearty Welcome of Dennis Hanks at the White House 147 

"He's All Right, but a Chronic Squealer" 163 



8 CONTENTS. 

How Young Daniel Webster Escapes a Flogging, as Related 

by Lincoln 160 

Kindness of Heart 166 

Lincoln's Hair 153 

Lincoln's Modesty 165 

Lincoln's Unconventionality in Receiving Old Friends at the 

White House 140 

"Mother, He's Just the Same Old Abe" 161 

Lincoln's Great Love for Little Tad 155 

Mr. Lincoln's Tact 152 

"Oh, Pa, He Isn't Ugly" 153 

Remarkable Memory of Lincoln 141 

Secretary Stanton's Uncomplimentary Opinion 164 

Simplicity 154 

The Hardest Trial of Lincoln's Life 156 

The Inauguration, March 4, 1861 135 

The Interviews 148 

The Presidency Not a Bed of Roses 149 

The President's Mind Wandered 144 

The President Wields an Ax at the Washington Navy Yard.. 150 

The Old Lady and the Pair of Stockings 150 

Thorough 152 

"Time Lost Don't Count" 162 

Unhealthy Group of Office Seekers 150 

STORIES OF THE WAR 168-218 

A Case Where Lincoln Thought Shooting Would Do No Good 176 

Advises an Angry Officer 191 

Among the Wounded 175 

A Story Illustrating Lincoln's Impatience at McClellan's 

Slow Movements 190 

A Touching .Song Influences Lincoln to Pardon a Rebel 

Prisoner 169 

Hailing Out the Potomac River 182 

Brigadier Generals More Plentiful than Horses 202 

Bnrnside Safe 199 

Dangers Of Assassination 217 

Pright a Cure for Roils 202 

"(irant's Whilky" the Right Kind 199 



CONTENTS. 9 

Hardtack Wanted, not Generals 168 

"Help Me Let This Hog Go" 196 

How Lincoln Pacified Disappointed Office Seekers 207 

Incident in Lincoln's Last Speech 218 

"Let Jeff Escape. I Don't Want Him" 213 

"Let the Elephant Escape" 201 

Lincoln and Little Tad 200 

Lincoln and Tad 185 

Lincoln Fulfills His Vow 212 

Lincoln Defends His Use of the Word "Sugar-coated" in a 

Public Document 181 

Lincoln's Glimpse of War 210 

Lincoln's High Compliment to the Women of America 172 

Lincoln's Influence with the Administration 179 

Lincoln's Last Afternoon 218 

Lincoln's Love of Soldier Humor 191 

Lincoln's Plan of War 172 

Lincoln Refuses Pardon to a Slave Stealer 178 

Lincoln's Summing Up of McClellan 190 

Lincoln's Tenderness 206 

"Making a Fizzle, Anyhow" 189 

"Massa Linkun" Worshiped by the Negroes 203 

Mr. Lincoln as Historian 186 

Mr. Lincoln's Military Talent 188 

New Instructions to Generals 177 

Righteous Indignation 17 1 

Tad, the Commissioned Officer 186 

That Savage Dog 195 

The Biter Bit 205 

The Colored People's New Year's Reception 214 

The Colored People of Richmond Honor Lincoln 204 

The Hon. Frederick Douglass Tells of an Interview with 

Lincoln 183 

The Little Drummer Boy 176 

The Millionaires Who Wanted a Gun-boat 173 

The President and Fighting Joe 187 

The President and the Monitor 192 

The President Making Generals 168 

The President Obeying Orders 173 



io CONTENTS. 

The President Refuses to Sign Twenty-four Death Warrants 174 

The Son of Lincoln Displays a Rebel Flag 211 

Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand Passes to Richmond 211 

Whipped and Then Ran 169 

Why Mr. Lincoln Hesitated before Signing the Emancipa- 
tion Proclamation 188 

MISCELLANEOUS STORIES AND INCIDENTS 219-253 

Autobiography of Lincoln in a Single Paragraph 220 

Concerning Mr. Lincoln's Religious Views 222 

Death of Lincoln's Mother 221 

Henry J. Raymond's Reminiscences of Lincoln 22S 

Important Letter from J. Wilkes Booth 232 

Indictment of the Conspirators — Charges and Specifications.. 245 

Lincoln's Definition of Biography 224 

Lincoln's Favorite Poem 225 

Lincoln's Religion 224 

Lincoln's Religious Belief 221 

Reward Offered by Secretary Stanton 244 

Song Composed by Abraham Lincoln 219 

Walt Whitman's Vivid Description of Lincoln's Assassination 238 

LINCOLN'S LETTERS 254-272 

Affectionate Son 254 

Instructions to Major Robert Anderson 262 

Letter to August Belmont 264 

Letter to Colfax 261 

Letter to Gen. Duff Oreen 259 

Letter to Maj.-Oen. II<x>ker 267 

r to Mrs. Armstrong 254 

Letter to Mrs. Gurney, Wife of Eminent English Preacher, 

of the Society of Friends 271 

Letter to Seward 202 

Lincoln's First Letter of Acceptance 258 

Lincoln's Idea of the Slavery Conflict, in 1S55 255 

Lincoln Writes to His Step-Mother 255 

Mr. Lincoln's First Public Lettei after His Election 260 

Mr. Lincoln's Reply to the Poet Bryant 259 

Partial Reply to Censure OS the Arret of Vall.mdighani, 

June, [863 267 



CONTENTS. ii 

Presentation of a Gold Medal to Lieut.-Gen. Grant by Presi- 
dent Lincoln 271 

The President's Letter to Hon. Jas. C. Conklin, August 16, 

1863 268 

The President on the Negro Question 265 

LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES 273-469 

A Great Congressional Speech 281 

A Humorous Speech — Lincoln in the Black Hawk War 332 

A Proclamation 446 

A Proclamation 448 

A Proclamation 449 

Douglas's Seven Questions — Lincoln's Position Denned on 

the Questions of the Day 327 

Emancipation Proclamation 450 

Extracts Upon which Seward Based His "Irrepressible Con- 
flict Platform" 447 

First Speech after His Nomination 415 

First Talk after His Nomination 422 

Joint Debate Between Mr. Douglas and Mr. Lincoln 333 

Lincoln's First Political Speech 273 

Lincoln's First Inaugural Address 425 

Lincoln's First Speech in the Senatorial Campaign — The 

House Divided Against Itself Speech 315 

Lincoln's Speech at Columbus, Ohio, Feb. 13th, 1861 520 

Lincoln's Speech at Indianapolis, Feb. 12th, 1861 417 

Lincoln's Speech at Washington, Feb. 27th, 1861 421 

Lincoln's Temperance Speech 298 

Lincoln's Second Inaugural Speech * 458 

Mr. Douglas's Reply 374 

Mr. Lincoln's Reply 350 

National Bank vs. Sub. Treasury 277 

President Lincoln's Adieu to Springfield 416 

President Lincoln's Last Speech 462 

Proclamation by the President 420 

Reply to the Committee from the Virginia Convention, April 

20, 1861 438 

Response to Serenade from Marylanders, Washington, Nov., 

1864 458 



12 ILLUSTRATIONS. 

Second Nomination 457 

Speech Delivered at Cincinnati, Feb. 12th, 1861 417 

The Ballot vs. the Bullet 312 

The Emancipation Question in Missouri 445 

The Perpetuity of Our Free Institutions 273 

The President to Lieutenant-G eneral Grant 456 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAGE 

"And Couldn't Ye Put a Little Brandy In All Unbeknown 

to Myself? 313 

Chicago Wigwam Where the Convention of 1S60 Was Held .. 137 

Campaign Badge 131 

Campaign Badges 121 

Colored People's Reception, New Year's, 1865 215 

Dinner Given to the President-elect at Harrisburg, Feb. 22, 

i860 .'. 441 

House in which Lincoln Died, Washington, D. C 239 

Lincoln and Son Tad 157 

Lincoln as a Rail Splitter 55 

Lincoln Getting the Worst of a Horse Trade 105 

Lincoln's Early Home, Elizabethtown, Ky 65 

Lincoln's First Home in Illinois 77 

Lincoln's Home in Springfield 77 

Lincoln Defending Armstrong 95 

Lincoln's Death 242 

Lincoln Reading by a Pine Knot 47 

Lincoln Rescues a Pig 85 

Lincoln Receiving Dennis Hanks 145 

Listening, but Not Convinced 383 

Parlor in Lincoln's Home, Springfield, 111 in 

Reception Given by Lincoln 423 

Second Inaugural Address of President Lincoln 459 

Btatfl House in Springfield, 111. — Now Courthouse 117 

The Fretting Questions of Bven a Great War S e e m ed to 

Perish Until "Tad" Had Completed His Romp 197 



Abraham Lincoln. 



A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

I. 

HIS BIRTH AND ANCESTRY. 

A perennial charm attaches to the name and memory 
of Abraham Lincoln. Among those who knew him 
personally in the intimacy of private life, his simplicity 
and geniality of character, his intense humanity, and 
an absolute confidence in his personal integrity won 
him friends; with the nation — including many who 
had been his bitterest political foes — his exalted 
patriotism and the part which he played in the preser- 
vation of his country and the emancipation of a race 
commanded respect and admiration ; with the world at 
large, all these characteristics, and the place which he 
filled with such unswerving uprightness, ability, and 
success, during one of the most perilous and dramatic 
crises in all history, made him the most important and 
conspicuously historic figure of his time. While the 
lineage of such a man may be a matter of comparative 
indifference, in the light of what he accomplished for 

13 



i 4 LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

his country and mankind, his life-history becomes of 
the most absorbing interest not only to his own 
countrymen, but in all lands where the virtues of per- 
sonal integrity, unselfish patriotism and far-reaching 
political sagacity are appreciated and held in proper 
esteem — a fact attested by the avidity with which each 
new volume dealing with his public or private career, 
and every incident, event, or anecdote connected with 
his life, is caught up and absorbed by those of whom he 
was accustomed to speak as "the plain common 
people. " 

There could be no more appropriate place than this 
to introduce what Mr. Lincoln himself had to say of 
his own and his family history, in a letter to his friend, 
the Hon. Jesse W. Fell, of Bloomington, 111., under 
date of December 20, 1859 — the year preceding his 
election to the Presidency, and about the time his 
friends were beginning to think seriously of his nomi- 
nation for that office. He then said: 



HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

"I was born, February 12, 1809, in Hardin County, 
Kentucky. My parents were both born in Virginia, of 
undistinguished families — second families, perhaps I 
should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, 
was of a family of the name of Hanks, some of whom 
now reside in Adams and others in Macon County, 
Illinois. My paternal grandfather, Abraham Lincoln, 
emigrated from Rockingham County, Virginia, to Ken- 
tucky, about 1 78 1 or 1782, where, a year or two later, 
he was killed by Indians, not in battle, but by stealth, 
when he was laboring to open a farm in the forest, 



LIFE OF LINCOLN. 15 

His ancestors, who were Quakers, went to Virginia 
from Berks County, Pennsylvania. An effort to 
identify them with the New England family of 
the same name ended in nothing more than a simi- 
larity of Christian names in both families, such as 
Enoch, Levi, Mordecai, Solomon, Abraham, and the 
like. 

"My father, at the death of his father, was but six 
years of age, and he grew up literally without educa- 
tion. He removed from Kentucky to what is now 
Spencer County, Indiana, in my eighth year. We 
reached our new home about the time the State came 
into the Union (1816). It was a wild region, with 
many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. 
There I grew up. There were some schools, so-called, 
but no qualification was ever required of a teacher 
beyond 'readin', writin', and cipherin' ' to the Rule 
of Three. If a straggler, supposed to understand 
Latin, happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, he 
was looked upon as a wizard. There was absolutely 
nothing to excite ambition for education. Of course, 
when I came of age, I did not know much. Still, 
somehow, I could read, write, and cipher to the Rule 
of Three, but that was all. I have not been to school 
since. The little advance I now have upon this store 
of education I have picked up from time to time under 
the pressure of necessity. 

"I was raised to farm-work, which I continued until 
I was twenty-two. At twenty-one I came to Illinois 
and passed the first year in Macon County. Then I 
got tQ New Salem, at that time in Sangamon, now in 
Menard County, where I remained a year as a sort of 
clerk ia a store. Then came the Black Hawk War, 



16 LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

and I was elected a captain of volunteers — a success 
which gave me more pleasure than any I have had 
since. I went through the campaign, was elated, ran 
for the Legislature in the same year (1832), and was 
beaten — the only time I have ever been beaten by the 
people. The next, and three succeeding biennial elec- 
tions, I was elected to the Legislature. I was not a 
candidate afterwards. During this legislative period, 
I had studied law and removed to Springfield to prac- 
tice it. In 1846 I was once elected to the lower House 
of Congress, but was not a candidate for re-election. 
From 1849 to 1854, both inclusive, practiced law more 
assiduously than ever before. Always a Whig in pol- 
itics, and generally on the Whig electoral ticket mak- 
ing active canvasses. I was losing interest in politics 
when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused 
me again. What I have done since then is pretty well 
•known. 

"If any personal description of me is thought desir- 
able, it may be said, I am, in height, six feet four 
inches, nearly; lean in flesh, weighing, on an average, 
one hundred and eighty pounds; dark complexion, 
with coarse black hair, and gray eyes. No other 
marks or brands recollected. 

"Yours truly, 

"A. Lincoln." 



Soon after his nomination for the Presidency in i860, 
Mr. Lincoln wrote out a somewhat more elaborate 
sketch of his life for the use of his friends in preparing 
a campaign biography for the canvass of that year, but 
it contained little or nothing in reference to his early 



LIFE OF LINCOLN. 17 

life in addition to what is supplied, with such char- 
acteristic modesty and frankness, mingled with quaint 
humor in its closing paragraph, in the sketch just 
quoted. It would be difficult to comprise within 
smaller space what was then known of his genealogy 
and early life. As he himself said, "My early life is 
characterized in a single line of Gray's Elegy: 'The 
short and simple annals of the poor.' " Yet subse- 
quent research seems to have settled the fact beyond a 
doubt, that Abraham Lincoln belonged to a historic 
family of which Samuel Lincoln, who came from Eng- 
land about 1637, settling first at Salem and afterwards 
at Hingham, Mass., was the American progenitor. 
To the same source has been traced the ancestry of 
Gen. Benjamin Lincoln, of Revolutionary fame, who 
received the sword of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown in 
1781; two early Governors of Massachusetts (both 
named Levi Lincoln) ; Gov. Enoch Lincoln of Maine, 
besides others of national reputation. Mordecai Lin- 
coln, the son of Samuel, lived and died in Scituate, 
near Hingham, Mass.; Mordecai II., his son, emi- 
grated first to New Jersey and then to what after- 
wards became Berks County, Pennsylvania, as early as 
1720 to 1725. John, his son, removed to Rockingham 
County, Virginia, in 1758; his son Abraham, the 
father of Thomas (who was the father of the subject of 
this sketch), settled in Kentucky about 1781 or 1782, 
where he was killed by Indians in 1784, leaving 
Thomas, the father of the future President, a child of 
the age of six years. This will account for the hard- 
ships which the family of Thomas Lincoln endured in 
that frontier region, in the latter part of the last and 
the beginning of the present century, and the modesty 



18 LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

of the surroundings amid which Abraham Lincoln was 
born. 



II. 

LIFE IN KENTUCKY AND INDIANA. 

Miss Tarbell, in her "Early Life of Abraham Lin- 
coln," has presented conclusive documentary proofs of 
the marriage of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks in 
Washington County, Kentucky, June 12, 1806. Born 
the second child of this marriage ( a younger brother 
died in infancy), his early life was, undoubtedly, sim- 
ilar to that of other children of that region and period. 
There is reason to believe that there has been a dispo- 
sition on the part of two classes of writers to exag- 
gerate the picture of the squalor and wretchedness 
about the early Lincoln home — on the one hand, by 
those who had an object in seeking to magnify the 
popular impression regarding the meanness of his 
origin ; on the other hand, by those who sought to 
elevate him in public estimation by contrasting the 
modesty of his early beginnings with the exalted posi- 
tion to which he finally attained. While the former is 
unjust to his memory, the latter is unnecessary to a 
true estimate of his character. As a rule, the pioneers 
of Kentucky, as in other portions of the West, at that 
time, and even at a later date, usually lived in a Log- 
cabin of one room but scantily furnished. Those who 
had two or more rooms were considered fortunate, if 
not absolutely wealthy. At that time Abraham's 
father lived in what is now La Rue (then a part of 



LIFE OF LINCOLN. 19 

Hardin) County. Here Abraham spent his childhood 
until he had passed his seventh year. He went to 
school a little, but the total could not have been over a 
few months. Few stories are told of his life in Ken- 
tucky, because, by the time he had achieved a national 
reputation, there were few associates of his early 
childhood to tell them. 

When Abraham was in his eighth year (181 6), his 
father removed with his family to what is now Spencer 
County, Indiana. Here there is reason to believe their 
mode of life was ruder even than it was in Kentucky, 
as the country was newer and they settled in an 
unbroken forest. Mr. Lincoln himself says, in the 
paper already referred to as having been prepared as 
the basis for a campaign biography in i860, that "this 
removal was partly on account of slavery, but chiefly 
on account of the difficulty in land-titles in Kentucky." 
For a time, the family are said to have lived in a sort 
of camp or cabin built of logs on three sides and open 
at one end, which served as both door and windows. 
A story told by Lincoln himself about his life here 
gives his first, if not his only, experience as a hunter. 
"A few days before the completion of his eighth year, 
in the absence of his father, a flock of wild turkeys 
approached the new log-cabin, and Abraham, with a 
rifle gun, standing inside, shot through a crack and 
killed one of them. He has never since pulled a 
trigger on any larger game." 

Another story connected with his life in Indiana is 
that told by Austin Gollaher, a school- and play-mate 
of Abraham's — though somewhat older — who claims to 
have rescued the future President from drowning in 
consequence of his falling into a stream which they 



20 LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

were crossing on a log, while hunting partridges near 
Gollaher's home. The same claim of having saved 
Lincoln's life has been set up by Dennis Hanks, both 
presumably referring to the same event. In his own 
sketches, Mr. Lincoln makes no reference to this inci- 
dent, though there is believed to have been some basis 
of truth in the story, as told so graphically and circum- 
stantially by Gollaher. 

Here Abraham again went to school for a short time, 
but, according to his own statement, "the aggregate of 
all his schooling did not amount to one year." Accord- 
ing to the statement of his friend Gollaher, he "was an 
unusually bright boy at school, and made splendid 
progress in his studies. Indeed, he learned faster 
than any one of his schoolmates. Though so young, 
he studied very hard. He would get spice-wood 
brushes, hack them up on a log, and burn them two or 
three together, for the purpose of giving light by 
which he might pursue his studies." An ax was early 
put into his hands, and he soon became an important 
factor in clearing away the forest about the Lincoln 
home. Two years after the arrival in Indiana, Abra- 
ham's mother died, and a little over a year later his 
father married Mrs. Sarah Johnston, whom he had 
known in Kentucky. Her advent brought many 
improvements into the Lincoln home, as she possessed 
Bome property and was a woman of strong character. 
Between her and her step-son sprang up a warm 
friendship which lasted through life. His devotion to 
her illustrated one of the Btrong points in Mr. Lin- 
coln's character. 

In [8a6, at the age of seventeen years, Mr. Lincoln 
spent several months as a ferryman at the mouth of 



LIFE OF LINCOLN. 21 

Anderson Creek, where it enters the Ohio. According 
to a story told by him to Mr. Seward in Washington, 
after he became President, it was here he earned 
his first dollar by taking two travelers, with their bag- 
gage, to a passing steamer in the Ohio. It was here, 
too, probably, that he acquired that taste for river life 
which led, at the age of nineteen, to his taking his first 
trip to New Orleans as a hired hand on board a flat- 
boat loaded with produce, belonging to a Mr. Gentry, 
a business man of Gentryville, Ind., for which he 
received eight dollars per month and his passage home 
again. An almost tragic incident connected with this 
trip, told by Mr. Lincoln himself, was an attack made 
upon the boat and its crew by seven negroes for the 
purpose of robbery, and possibly murder, one night 
while the boat was tied to the shore along "the coast" 
on the lower Mississippi. The intended robbers were 
beaten off, but not until some of the crew had been 
wounded in the assault. 



III. 

REMOVAL TO ILLINOIS— A SECOND FLATBOAT 
VOYAGE TO NEW ORLEANS. 

In March, 1830, Abraham Lincoln — having just 
reached his majority — removed with his father's family 
to Illinois, thus becoming identified with the State to 
which his name has given such luster. This removal 
was brought about largely through the influence of 
John Hanks, who had married one of Abraham's step- 
sisters, and had preceded the family to Illinois by two 
years. The first location was made on the banks of 



22 LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

the Sangamon River, near the present village of 
Harristown, in the western part of Macon County. 
Here he set to work assisting his father to build their 
first home in Illinois and open a farm, splitting some 
of the rails which aroused so much enthusiasm when 
exhibited in the State Convention at Decatur, which 
preceded his nomination for the Presidency in 1S60. 
A year later we find him engaging himself, in con- 
junction with John Hanks and one or two others, to 
build a flatboat, on the Sangamon River near Spring- 
field, for Daniel Offutt, which he accompanied to New 
Orleans with a load of produce. During a stay of one 
month in the "Crescent City," he had his first oppor- 
tunity of seeing the horrible side of the institution of 
slavery, and there is reason to believe that he then 
became imbued with those sentiments which bore such 
vast results for the country and a race a generation 
later. According to the testimony of his friend Hern- 
don, "he saw 'negroes in chains — whipped and 
scourged.' Against this inhumanity his sense of right 
and justice rebelled, and his mind and conscience were 
awakened to a realization of what he had often heard 
and read. No doubt, as one of his companions has 
said, 'Slavery ran the iron into him then and there.' 
One morning, in their rambles over the city, they 
passed a slave auction. A vigorous and comely 
mulatto girl was being sold. She underwent a 
thorough examination at the hands of the bidders; 
they pinched her flesh and made her trot up and down 
the room like a horse to show how she moved, as the 
auctioneer said, that 'bidders might satisfy themselves' 
whether the article they were offering to buy was 
sound or not. The whole thing was so revolting that 



LIFE OF LINCOLN. 23 

Lincoln moved away from the scene with a deep feel- 
ing of 'unconquerable hate.' Bidding his companions 

follow him, he said: ' Boys, let's get away from 

this. If ever I get a chance to hit that thing' (mean- 
ing slavery), 'I'll hit it hard.'" Mr. Herndon says 
this incident was not only furnished to him by John 
Hanks, but that he heard Mr. Lincoln refer to it him- 
self. 

After his return from New Orleans, he entered the 
service of Offutt as clerk in a store at New Salem, then 
in Sangamon County, but now in the county of 
Menard, a few miles from Petersburg. While thus 
employed, he began in earnest the work of trying to 
educate himself, using a borrowed "Kirkham's Gram- 
mar" and other books, under the guidance of Mentor 
Graham, the village school-teacher. Later, with 
Graham's assistance, he studied surveying in order to 
fit himself for the position of a deputy to the County 
Surveyor. ' How well he applied himself to the study 
of the English language is evidenced by the clearness 
and accuracy with which he was accustomed to express 
himself, in after years, on great national and inter- 
national questions — as he had no opportunity of study 
in the schools after coming to Illinois. 

The year after locating at New Salem came the 
Black Hawk War, when he enlisted and was elected 
captain of his company — a result of which, previous to 
his election to the Presidency, he said, he had not 
since had any success in life which gave him so much 
satisfaction. His company having been disbanded, 
he again enlisted as a private under Captain Elijah 
lies. He remained in the service three months, but 
participated in no battle. 



24 LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

The early part of this year was made memorable in 
the history of Central Illinois by the arrival of the 
steamer "Talisman" from Cincinnati, in the Sangamon 
River, which it ascended to the vicinity of Springfield. 
The event produced the wildest enthusiasm through 
that region, as it was the first steamer to attempt the 
ascent of that stream, and was regarded as demonstrat- 
ing its navigability. Mr. Lincoln and Rowan Herndon 
piloted the vessel out of the river, and it never 
attempted a second trip, nor has any other tried the 
experiment. 

After returning from the Black Hawk War, Mr. Lin- 
coln made his first entry into business for himself as 
the partner of one Berry in the purchase of a stock of 
goods, to which they added two others by buying out 
local dealers on credit. To this, for a time, he added 
the office of Postmaster. In less than a year, they 
sold out their store on credit to other parties, who 
failed and absconded, leaving a burden of debt on 
Lincoln's shoulders which lasted until his retirement 
from Congress in 1849. 

It was during his stay at New Salem that occurred 
the romance connecting the names of Lincoln and the 
amiable but short-lived Anne Rutledge, destined to 
end in her early death, which has furnished so touch- 
ing a theme for his biographers. 



IV. 

ENTERS POLITICS— BEU INS THE STUDY OF LAW. 

The year of the Black Hawk War (183a) saw Lin- 
coln's entrance into politics as a candidate for Repre- 



LIFE OP LINCOLN. 25 

sentative in the General Assembly from Sangamon 
County, in opposition to Col. E. D. Taylor, who after- 
wards became Receiver of Public Moneys at Chicago 
by appointment of President Jackson, and died there 
in 1 89 1, at the age of nearly ninety years. Taylor was 
elected, Lincoln then sustaining the only defeat of his 
life as a candidate for office directly at the hands of 
the people. He took a just and natural pride in the 
fact that, although he was an avowed supporter of 
Henry Clay, and General Jackson, a few months 
later, carried the New Salem precinct by a majority of 
115 votes, he received 277 out of the 284 votes cast at 
his home precinct at the earlier election. 

Lincoln was then in his twenty-fourth year, uncouth 
in dress and unpolished in manners, but with a basis 
of sound sense and sterling honesty which commanded 
the respect and confidence of all who knew him. He 
also had a fund of humor and drollery, which, in spite 
of a melancholy temperament, found expression in 
sallies of wit and the relation of amusing stories, and 
led him to enter with spirit into any sort of amusement 
or practical jokes so customary at that time; yet those 
who knew him best say that he "never drank intoxi- 
cating liquors," nor "even, in those days, did he smoke 
or chew tobacco." 

After his disastrous experience as a merchant at New 
Salem, and a period of service as Deputy County Sur- 
veyor, in 1834 he again became a candidate for the 
Legislature and was elected. During the succeeding 
session at Vandalia, he was thrown much into the 
company of his colleague, Maj. John T. Stuart, whose 
acquaintance he had made during the Black Hawk 
War, and through whose advice, and the offer of 



26 LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

books, he was induced to enter upon the study of law. 
Again, in 1836, he was re-elected to the Legislature. 
His growing popularity was indicated by the fact that, 
at this election, he received the highest vote cast for 
any candidate on the legislative ticket from Sangamon 
County. In the Legislature chosen at this time, 
Sangamon County was represented by the famous 
"Long Nine" — two being members of the Senate and 
Seven of the House — of whom Lincoln was the tallest. 
This Legislature was made memorable in State history 
by the fact that it was the one which passed the act 
removing the State capital from Vandalia to Spring- 
field, and set on foot the ill-fated "internal improve- 
ment scheme," in both of which Lincoln bore a 
prominent part, but the last of which he lived to regret 
on account of the burdensome debt which it imposed 
upon the State without beneficial results. It was also 
conspicuous for the large number of its members who 
afterwards became distinguished in state or national 
history. Among them we find such names as Edward 
D. Baker, afterwards Congressman from the Spring- 
field and Galena districts, United States Senator from 
Oregon, and killed at Ball's Bluff during the Civil 
War; Orville H. Browning, who became United States 
Senator and Attorney-General of the United States; 
four others — Stephen A. Douglas, James Semple, 
James Shields, and William A. Richardson — became 
United States Senators; four — John J. Hardin. John 

A. McClernand, William A. Richardson, ami Robert 
Smith — occupied scats in the lower House of Congress; 
three became Attorney-Generals ; four, Stale 'Treas- 
urers; three, Lieutenant-Governors, and one (Augus- 
tus C. French), Governor. Re-elected to the House in 



LIFE OF LINCOLN. 27 

1838, and again in 1840, we find him the associate of 
such men as Dr. John Logan, the father of Gen. John 
A. Logan; William H. Bissell, afterwards Congress- 
man and Governor; Lyman Trumbull, afterwards a 
Justice of the Supreme Court and United States Sen- 
ator; Thomas Drummond, who became Judge of the 
United States District Court; Joseph Gillespie, 
Ebenezer Peck, and many more who became his life- 
long friends. His prominence at this time is shown by 
the fact that, at both of these sessions — 1838 and 1840 
— he was the choice of his party (the Whig) for 
Speaker of the House, but defeated by the candidate 
of the Democracy, who were in the majority. 

On his return from the Legislature of 1836-37, he 
entered upon the practice of law, for which he had 
been preparing, as the necessity of making a livelihood 
would permit, for the past two years, entering into 
partnership with his preceptor and legislative col- 
league, Hon. John T. Stuart. The story of his 
removal, as told by his friend, Joshua F. Speed, then 
a merchant of Springfield, whose invitation to share 
his room Lincoln finally accepted, is so graphic, and, 
withal, tinged with such a mixture of frankness, 
humor, and pathos, as to be worthy of reproduction 
here. Mr. Speed says: 

"He had ridden into town on a borrowed horse, and 
engaged from the only cabinet-maker in the village a 
single bedstead. He came into my store, set his sad- 
dle-bags on the counter, and inquired what the furni- 
ture for a single bedstead would cost. I took slate 
and pencil, made a calculation, and found the sum for 
furniture, complete, would amount to seventeen dollars 
in all. Said he: 'It is probably cheap enough; but I 



28 LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

want to say that, cheap as it is, I have not the money 
to pay. But if you will credit me until Christmas, and 
my experiment as a lawyer here is a success, I will pay 
you then. If I fail in that, I will probably never pay 
you at all. ' The tone of his voice was so melancholy 
that I felt for him. I looked at him, and I thought 
then, as I think now, that I never saw so gloomy and 
melancholy a face in my life. I said to him, 'So small 
a debt seems to affect you so deeply, I think I can sug- 
gest a plan by which ) 7 ou will be able to attain your 
end without any debt. I have a very large room, and 
a very large double-bed in it, which you are perfectly 
welcome to share with me if you choose.' 'Where is 
your room?' he asked. 'Upstairs,' said I, pointing to 
the stairs leading from the store to my room. With- 
out saying a word, he took his saddle-bags on his arm, 
went upstairs, set them down on the floor, came down 
again, and, with a face beaming with pleasure and 
smiles, exclaimed, 'Well, Speed, I'm moved.' " 

The friendship between Lincoln and Speed, which 
began in, and was cemented by, this generous act of 
the latter, was of the most devoted character, and, 
although Mr. Speed returned to his native State of 
Kentucky a few years later, it was continued through 
life. During the Civil War, he was intrusted by Mr. 
Lincoln with many delicate and important duties in 
the interest of the Government. His brother, James 
Speed, was appointed by Mr. Lincoln Attorney-* Gen- 
eral in 1864, but resigned after the accession of Presi- 
dent Johnson. 



LIFE OF LINCOLN. 29 

V. 

AS LAWYER AND POLITICAL LEADER. 

After 1840 Mr. Lincoln declined a re-election to the 
Legislature. His prominence as a political leader was 
indicated by the appearance of his name on the Whig 
electoral ticket of that year, as it did again in 1844 and 
in 1852, and on the Republican ticket for the State-at- 
Large in 1856. Except while in the Legislature, 
from 1837 he gave his attention to the practice of his 
profession, first as the partner of Maj. John T. Stuart, 
then of Judge Stephen T. Logan, and finally of Wil- 
liam H. Herndon, the latter partnership continuing, at 
least nominally, until his death. His life as a lawyer 
upon "the circuit" was much to his liking, as it 
brought him in contact with many congenial minds. 
Friendships were formed during this period which 
lasted through life. Next to those among the lawyers 
about his home at Springfield — the Edwardses, Judge 
Logan, John T. Stuart, J. C. Conkling, and others of an 
earlier and later period — probably none was stronger 
than that entertained for David Davis, of Blooming- 
ton, who was one of the most earnest supporters of his 
nomination for the Presidency in i860, and afterwards 
received at his hands an appointment on the Supreme 
Bench of the United States. 

In an address before the Young Men's Lyceum at 
Springfield, in January, 1837, on "The Perpetuation of 
our Political Institutions, ' ' Mr. Lincoln gave out what 
may be construed as one of his earliest public utter- 
ances on the subject of slavery. His theme was sug- 
gested by numerous lynchings and mob outrages which 
had been taking place in a number of the Southern 



30 LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

States — especially in Mississippi — and by the recent 
burning of a negro in St. Louis charged with the com- 
mission of a murder. The argument, as a whole, was 
a warning against the danger of mob law to the prin- 
ciples of civil liberty enunciated in the Declaration of 
Independence, and a cautious plea for the right of free 
speech. In it he said: 

"There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress 
by mob law. In any case that may arise, as, for 
instance, the promulgation of abolitionism, one of 
two positions is necessarily true — that the thing is 
right within itself, and therefore deserves protection 
of all law and all good citizens; or it is wrong, 
and, therefore, proper to be prohibited by legal 
enactments; and in neither case is the interposition 
of mob law either necessary, justifiable, or excus- 
able." 

While there are some crudities in this early effort, 
and an absence of that logical clearness, directness, 
and force which distinguished Air. Lincoln's later pro- 
ductions, it indicates the bent of his mind at that time 
on this subject. This was shown, possibly, with still 
greater emphasis and distinctness during the session 
of the Legislature in March of the same year, when, 
in conjunction with one other member — his colleague, 
Dan Stone — he entered upon the House Journal his 
protest against a scries of pro-slavery resolutions which 
had been adopted by that body. In that document the 
protectants expressed their belief "that the institution 
of slavery is founded >>n both injustice and bad policy," 
ami that, while Congress had "no power under the 
Con ttitUtion to interfere with the institution of slavery 
in the different States," it had the power to abolish 



LIFE OF LINCOLN. 31 

it in the District of Columbia, but ought not to 
exercise it except at the request of the people of the 
District. ' ' 

On November 4, 1842, Mr. Lincoln was married to 
Miss Mary Todd, but held no office until his election in 
1846 as Representative in Congress for the Springfield 
District. He made several speeches during his term, 
the most noteworthy being one in which, in his char- 
acteristic style, he took ground in opposition to the 
position of the administration in reference to the Mex- 
ican War — on that subject agreeing with the famous 
Tom Corwin. His attitude on the slavery question is 
indicated by his statement that, while in Congress, he 
voted in favor of the Wilmot Proviso forty-two times, 
and supported a bill for the abolition of slavery in the 
District of Columbia, with the consent of the voters of 
the District and with compensation to the owners. 
This was his uniform position with reference to slavery 
up to the time when the slave-holders forfeited their 
right to be protected by engaging in rebellion, and 
when its abolition became a "war measure." 



VI. 

ORGANIZATION OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 

Impelled by the necessity of providing for his family, 
during the five years following his retirement from 
Congress in 1849, Mr. Lincoln gave his time to the 
practice of his profession more industriously than ever 
before. The passage, in May, 1854, of the so-called 



32 LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

Kansas-Nebraska bill, repealing the Missouri Compro- 
mise and opening the way for the admission of slavery 
into territory which had been "dedicated to freedom," 
again called him into the political arena, and marked a 
new era in his career. Although neither holding an 
office nor a candidate for one, he almost immediately 
became one of the leaders of the opposition to that 
measure. During the early days of October, 1854, the 
State Fair being in progress, Senator Douglas came to 
Springfield to enter upon a defense of his action. In 
Mr. Lincoln and Lyman Trumbull he found his chief 
and ablest critics and antagonists. Two weeks later, 
Mr. Lincoln delivered, at Peoria, probably the most 
exhaustive argument that had, so far, been delivered 
on this question. At this time, Mr. Lincoln had strong 
hopes that the Whig party would align itself in opposi- 
tion to the Nebraska bill, and refused to identify him- 
self with any scheme for the organization of a new 
party. At the November election, he and Judge 
Stephen T. Logan — confessedly the two ablest men of 
the party in Sangamon County — were taken up and 
elected to the Legislature. Lincoln, recognizing that 
his name was to come before the Legislature at the 
coming session, as a candidate for the United States 
Senate, as a successor to General Shields, declined to 
accept his certificate of election, thereby leaving a 
vacancy t«> be filled by a special election. By the 
device popularly known as a "still hunt," a Democrat 
was chosen to iill the vacancy. When the Legislature 
met on January 1, 1855, the Anti-Nebraska Whigs and 
Anti-Nebraska Democrats still had a small majority. 
The Senatorial election came on February 8. Lincoln 
became tin- caucus nominee of the Whigs, Shields of 



LIFE OF LINCOLN. 33 

the straight-out Democrats, while Lyman Trumbull 
received the support of the Anti- Nebraska Democrats. 
On the first ballot Lincoln received his full vote of 
forty-five members, while Trumbull received five, 
which, combined with the Lincoln vote, would have 
been sufficient to elect — all other candidates receiving 
forty-nine votes. Trumbull's supporters stood by 
him, while a portion of Lincoln's fell off. Before 
reaching the tenth ballot it was evident that a combi- 
nation would have to be effected in order to prevent 
the election of a Democrat. By Lincoln's advice, his 
friends went to Trumbull, and he was elected. While 
Lincoln frankly acknowledged his disappointment 
at the result, he never displayed his characteristic 
magnanimity and unselfishness, for the good of the 
cause which he represented and the welfare of the 
country, more conspicuously than he did in this in- 
stance. 

A year later, realizing the utter hopelessness of the 
attempt to inspire the Whig party with new life, he 
entered with zeal into the work of organizing a new 
party. He attended the conference of a dozen Anti- 
Nebraska editors held at Decatur on the 2 2d of Feb- 
ruary, 1856, for the purpose of agreeing on a line of 
policy to be pursued in opposition to the effort to carry 
slavery into the new Territories under the Kansas- 
Nebraska Act. He consulted with the Committee on 
Resolutions, with the result that a platform was 
adopted clearly embodying the principles finally 
enunciated by the Republican party. A resolution 
was also adopted appointing a State Convention to be 
held at Bloomington on May 29, following, with a State 
Central Committee to carry this program into effect. 



34 LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

At a banquet given in the evening to the members of 
the conference at the St. Nicholas Hotel, by the citizens 
of Decatur, while discountenancing the use of his own 
name as a candidate for Governor, he favored the 
nomination of Col. William H. Bissell, as that of an 
Anti-Nebraska Democrat who would unite all the ele- 
ments opposed to the Nebraska bill in his support. 
The convention was held at the time and place named ; 
Mr. Lincoln made before it one of the ablest and most 
inspiring speeches of his life; the Republican party, so 
far as Illinois was concerned, was brought into exist- 
ence; the program proposed by him at Decatur, for 
the nomination of Bissell for Governor, was carried 
into effect by acclamation, and its wisdom demon- 
strated by the election of the entire State ticket in 
November following. In the first National Conven- 
tion of the Republican party, held at Philadelphia on 
June 17, he was a leading candidate for the nomination 
for the Vice- Presidency on the Fremont ticket, receiv- 
ing no votes, and coming next to William L. Dayton, 
who was nominated. In the canvass of that year, he 
made over fifty speeches in different parts of the 
State, though not a candidate for any office except as 
the head of the electoral ticket. 



VII. 

HOUSE-DIVIDED AGAINST-I TS1-.LF SPEECH— THE 
LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE of 1S5S. 

Witli the exception of a speech before his neighbors 
at Springfield, in reply to one by Judge Douglas, in 



LIFE OF LINCOLN. 35 

June, 1857, Mr. Lincoln gave little time to politics 
between 1856 and 1858, devoting his attention chiefly 
to his profession. As the date of the State Conven- 
tions of the latter year approached, the political ele- 
ments began to seethe and bubble. That of the 
Republicans met June 16, continuing its session two 
days. On the 17th a resolution was unanimously 
adopted declaring Abraham Lincoln its "first and 
only choice for United States Senator, to fill the 
vacancy about to be created by the expiration of 
Mr. Douglas' term of office." In the evening, Mr. 
Lincoln delivered an address in response to this reso- 
lution. This meeting was held in the Hall of Repre- 
sentatives in the old State capitol. His speech was, in 
large part, a reiteration of the sentiments expressed at 
the Bloomington Convention of two years before, 
carried out to their logical conclusions. As it was 
written out, there is no doubt of the accuracy of the 
report given to the public. This has been universally 
recognized as one of the most important utterances of 
his life, scarcely second in importance to his two 
inaugural addresses. Its most striking passage is 
comprised in the following paragraph : 

"A house divided against itself cannot stand. I 
believe this Government cannot endure permanently 
half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union 
to be dissolved— I do not expect the house to fall — but 
I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become 
all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents 
of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place 
it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it 
is in course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates 
will push it forward, till it shall, become alike lawful in 



36 LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

all the States — old as well as new, North as well as 
South." 

While he recognized that there was a "tendency to 
the latter condition," in the removal of the last obstacle 
to the introduction of slavery in the new Territories 
by the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, he evi- 
dently hoped for a different result, as shown by the 
encouraging words with which he closed this historical 
address: 

"The result is not doubtful. We shall not fail — if 
we stand firm, we shall not fail. Wise counsels may 
accelerate or mistakes delay it, but sooner or later the 
victory is sure to come." 

The effect of this speech was startling. While it 
provoked the bitter criticism of his opponents — who, 
without justification, denounced it as a plea for dis- 
union — it was regarded by many of his friends as ill- 
advised. Yet its far-reaching sagacity and foresight, 
which now seem to have been prompted by a species 
of inspired prophecy, were demonstrated by the events 
of less than five years later, in which he was a prin- 
cipal factor. 

The Springfield speech was followed, a few months 
later, by the scries of joint debates with Senator 
las, in which Lincoln was the challenging party, 
Douglas naming the conditions. Seven meetings were 
held, as fellows: Ottawa, August 21; Freeport, Au- 
gust 27; Jonesboro, September 15; Charleston, 
tember 18; Galesburg, October 7 ; Quincy, October is: 

Alton, October 15 -Douglas opening and closing at 
four and Lincoln at three. They not only aroused the 
interesl of both parties throughout the State, but 
attracted the attention of the whole country. A fea- 



LIFE OF LINCOLN. 37 

ture of this debate was the seven questions submitted 
to Douglas by Lincoln, four of which were propounded 
at Freeport and the other three at subsequent dates. 
These were a sort of offset to an equal number of 
questions propounded to Lincoln by Douglas at their 
first debate at Ottawa. The answers made by Douglas 
involved him in inconsistencies and apparent contra- 
dictions, which weakened him in the South and con- 
tributed to his defeat as a candidate for the Presidency 
in i860. 

At the election in November, 1858 — although the 
Republicans elected their State ticket by nearly 4,000 
plurality — the friends of Judge Douglas secured a 
majority in the Legislature, thus a second time defeat- 
ing Mr. Lincoln's aspirations to the United States 
Senate. 

This debate served as a sort of school for Mr. Lin- 
coln, in which he studied, with the deepest intensity, 
those questions affecting human rights and the per- 
manent welfare of the nation ; and, while proving the 
capacity which he ever manifested to rise to every 
demand of the occasion, qualified him for the problems 
which he was called to face a few years later. The 
national reputation thus won for him was still further 
enhanced by his speeches in Ohio in September, 1859, 
still later in Kansas, and early in i860 in the East — 
that delivered at Cooper Institute, New York, on Feb- 
ruary 27, i860, being the most memorable. The 
latter, by their sound sentiment, convincing logic, and 
lofty patriotism, evoked the admiration of Eastern 
Republicans and prepared the way for what was to 
come at Chicago in May following. 



38 LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

VIII. 

ELECTION TO THE PRESIDENCY— ADMINISTRA- 
TION— DEATH. 

The National Republican Convention met at Chi- 
cago, May 1 6, i860. The Republicans of Illinois had 
already been stirred to enthusiasm by the scenes wit- 
nessed in the State Convention at Decatur, a week 
earlier, and this was sustained in the National Conven- 
tion by the presence of such men, on the floor or in 
the audience, as David Davis, Norman B. Judd, Bur- 
ton C. Cook, Stephen T. Logan, O. H. Browning, 
Leonard Swett, R. J. Oglesby, Joseph Gillespie, and 
large delegations of Mr. Lincoln's personal friends 
from all parts of Illinois, to say nothing of those from 
other States. 

The work of nominating a candidate for President 
was taken up on the third day — May 18. On the first 
ballot, William H. Seward led Lincoln by 53^ votes, 
on the second by only 3^; on the third, Lincoln 
received 231^ votes to 180 for Seward — all others 
receiving 533^ votes. Before the result was announced, 
Lincoln's vote had increased to 354, and he was finally 
nominated unanimously amid the wildest enthusiasm. 
Lincoln received the announcement of his nomination 
in the editorial room of "The State Journal" at 
Springfield, and, after receiving the congratulations 
of his friends, withdrew to inform his wife of the 
result. 

The succeeding campaign was one of great earnest- 
ness and enthusiasm on the part of his political friends 
in all the Northern States, and one of intense bitter- 
ness on the part of his enemies, especially in the 



LIFE OP LINCOLN. 39 

South. He was described in the partisan press as 
rude, ignorant, and uncultivated to the last degree, 
and pictured as a "baboon," and even painted as a sot 
and drunkard after his election, in spite of his abstemi- 
ous habits. The election in November gave him a 
plurality of the popular vote and 180 electoral votes 
out of 303, although not a single vote was returned for 
him from ten Southern States. 

From this point the history of his life is the history 
of his country. On the morning of February 11, 1861, 
he left his home at Springfield to assume the duties of 
his office at Washington. Standing on the rear plat- 
form of the train at the depot of the Great Western 
(now the Wabash) Railroad, he addressed his friends 
and neighbors, who had assembled to witness his 
departure : 

"My Friends: No one not in my position can realize 
the sadness I feel at this parting. To this people I 
owe all that I am. Here I have lived more than a 
quarter of a century. Here my children were born, 
and here one of them lies buried. I know not how 
soon I shall see you again. I go to assume a task more 
difficult than that which has devolved upon any other 
man since the days of Washington. He never would have 
succeeded except for the aid of Divine Providence, 
upon which he at all times relied. I feel that I cannot 
succeed without the same divine blessing which sus- 
tained him ; and on the same Almighty Being I place 
my reliance for support. And I hope you, my friends, 
will all pray that I may receive that divine assistance, 
without which I cannot succeed, but with which suc- 
cess is certain. Again, I bid you an affectionate fare- 
well." 



4 o LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

No man ever spoke with profounder earnestness, or 
from a conscience stirred to deeper feeling by the bur- 
den of responsibility which had been placed upon his 
shoulders by the choice of the people. His route on 
the way to the National Capital lay through the States 
of Indiana, Ohio, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsyl- 
vania, and, at nearly every important station, immense 
throngs were gathered to greet him and bid him God- 
speed in the cause he had undertaken. The discovery of 
a plot to assassinate him in Baltimore led to a change 
of the program of his journey at Harrisburg, and 
he passed through Baltimore at night in company with 
Ward H. Lamon and Allan Pinkerton, the detective, 
arriving at Washington in safety on the morning of 
February 23. 

At that time the National Capital was full of leaders 
of secession, and unrest and mutual suspicion pre- 
vailed everywhere. Already seven States had adopted 
ordinances of secession, and four more soon followed 
their example. 

Mr. Lincoln's inaugural address was a touching 
appeal to stand by the Union, but, so far as the great 
bulk of the Southern people were concerned, it fell 
upon deaf ears. Then came four years of civil war 
with all its horrors. These were years of the deepest 
gloom and anxiety for Mr. Lincoln, but he never 
swerved from the duty he had assumed on the day of 
his inauguration, to "preserve, protect, and defend" 
the Union. 

The fall of Fort Sumter, the disaster at Bull Run, 
the reverses at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, 
and the long wait of McCkllan at Manassas and in the 
Valley of the James — though counterbalanced by the 



LIFE OF LINCOLN. 41 

Union victories in the West, especially at Fort Donel- 
son and Vicksburg, and the check to rebel invasion at 
Antietam and Gettysburg — tried the patience and faith 
of the President greatly, but he never lost confidence 
in the ultimate success of the Union cause. Then, too, 
he was the subject of bitter criticism on the part of 
political enemies, as well as a class of political friends 
— by the former, because he consented to the appeal to 
arms at all in defense of the Union; by the latter, 
because the war was not pushed with sufficient energy, 
and especially on his tardiness in striking at the insti- 
tution of slavery, which was regarded as the cause of 
the war. And yet, as to the latter, it is the universal 
judgment of impartial historians of that period, that he 
chose the right juncture for the issue of the Emancipa- 
tion Proclamation of January 1, 1863. 

That document — now universally regarded, next to 
the preservation of the Union itself, as the crowning 
feature of his administration — preceded by the prelim- 
inary proclamation of September 22, 1862, was issued 
as a "war measure" after months of anxious delibera- 
tion. It is well known that Mr. Lincoln, "while 
determined to resist the further extension of slavery 
into free territory, and desirous of its "ultimate extinc- 
tion," still believed that the supremacy of the laws and 
the Constitution should be respected, on this question 
as well as all others. For this reason, he urged upon 
the few loyal members who still remained in Congress 
from the Southern States the acceptance of emancipa- 
tion with compensation — which, if accepted by the 
South as a solution of the controversy between the 
two sections, would have resulted in immense saving 
of life and treasure. But this was not to be, and the 



42 LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

blow came, forced as a "war measure," immediately 
upon the heels of the victory at Antietam. If it had 
come earlier, there is reason to believe that it would 
have cost the Union some of its ablest but more con- 
servative supporters. Mr. Lincoln never evinced his 
remarkable political sagacity more strikingly than in 
the time and manner of its issue, and it was accepted 
by the people and the army, as a rule, without protest 
— often with enthusiastic approval as time proved its 
wisdom. And thus was verified the prophecy which 
he had made in his "house-divided-against-itself" 
speech less than five years before — and he had been 
the chief instrument in its accomplishment. 

The re-election of Mr. Lincoln in 1864, followed by 
the triumph of Thomas and Sherman in the West, and 
of Grant before Richmond, determined the fate of the 
Union. On April 3, 1865, the Union forces entered 
the city of Richmond, and, the day following, Presi- 
dent Lincoln visited the Rebel capital, receiving an 
enthusiastic welcome, the most unique feature of which 
was the thanks of the members of the race whom he 
had emancipated. On the nth — two days after the 
surrender of Lee to Grant — he arrived in Washington. 
Three days later (April 14), the fourth anniversary of 
the fall of Fort Sumter, the people in the principal 
cities of the country celebrated the fall of Richmond, 
the surrender of Lee, and the end of the rebellion. 

< >n the evening of that day, Mr. Lincoln, accom- 
panied by his wife, attended Ford's Theatre in Wash- 
ington, and, about half past nine, was shot by John 
Wilkes Booth, a fanatical champion of secession. His 
death occurred at 7 : sa o'clock the next morning. 
The nation, which had been rejoicing the day before 



LiFE OP LINCOLN. 43 

over a restored Union, was cast beneath a pall of the 
deepest gloom. His public funeral occurred on the 
19th, after which his remains lay in state in the 
rotunda of the National Capitol. On the 21st, 
the funeral cortege started on its sorrowful journey to 
Springfield, stopping at the principal cities en route, 
and arriving at its destination on the morning of May 
3d. No such evidence of national sorrow has been 
witnessed in this country or elsewhere. His remains 
lay in state in the Hall of Representatives — the theater 
of some of his most brilliant oratorical triumphs — until 
the 4th, when the final obsequies took place in Oak 
Ridge Cemetery, Bishop Simpson, of the Methodist 
Church, delivering the funeral address. Here a stately 
monument, including a statue of the martyred Presi- 
dent, has been erected to his memory, which was dedi- 
cated, October 15, 1874, the late Governor Oglesby 
delivering the principal address. Among other distin- 
guished men present, and who delivered addresses, 
were Gen. U. S. Grant (then President), Vice-President 
Henry Wilson, Gen. William T. Sherman, Hon. Wil- 
liam E. Forster, M.P., of England, and Hon. Schuyler 
Colfax. 

Nothing could more strikingly illustrate Mr. Lin- 
coln's high ideal and firmness for the right, his intense 
humanity, his deep sympathy and his broad charity for 
all — friends and foes alike — than the closing paragraph 
of his last inaugural address — his last important public 
utterance : 

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; 
with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the 
right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in ; to 
bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall 



44 LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

have borne the battle, and for his widow and his 
orphan — to do all which may achieve and cherish a 
just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all 
nations. ' ' 



Stories of Lincoln's 
Early Life. 



BOOKS READ BY LINCOLN IN HIS EARLY LIFE. 

The books which Abraham had the early privilege 
of reading were the Bible, much of which he could 
repeat, -^Esop's Fables, all of which he could repeat, 
Pilgrim's Progress, Weem's Life of Washington, and 
a Life of Henry Clay, which his mother had managed 
to purchase for him. Subsequently he read the Life 
of Franklin and Ramsey's Life of Washington. In 
these books, read and re-read, he found meat for his 
hungry mind. The Holy Bible, ^Esop and John 
Bunyan — could three better books have been chosen 
for him from the richest library? 

For those who have witnessed the dissipating effects 
of many books upon the minds of modern children, it is 
not hard to believe that Abraham's poverty of books 
was the wealth of his life. These three books did 
much to perfect that which his mother's teaching had 
begun, and to form a character which, for quaint sim- 
plicity, earnestness, truthfulness and purity, has never 

45 



46 STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. 

been surpassed among the historic personages of the 
world. The Life of Washington, while it gave him a 
lofty example of patriotism, incidentally conveyed to his 
mind a general knowledge of American history; and 
the Life of Henry Clay spoke to him of a living man 
who had risen to political and professional eminence 
from circumstances almost as humble as his own. 

The latter book undoubtedly did much to excite his 
taste for politics, to kindle his ambition, and to make 
him a warm admirer and partisan of Henry Clay. 
Abraham must have been very young when he 
read Weem's Life of Washington, and we catch a 
glimpse of his precocity in the thoughts which it 
excited, as revealed by himself in the speech made to 
the New Jersey Senate, while on his way to Washing- 
ton to assume the duties of the Presidency. 

Alluding to his early reading of this book, he says: 
"I remember all the accounts there given of the battle- 
fields and struggles for the liberty of the country, and 
none fixed themselves upon my imagination so deeply 
as the struggle here at Trenton, New Jersey. I 
recollect thinking then, a boy even though I was, that 
there must have been something more than common 
that those men struggled for." Even at this age, he 
not only an interested reader of the story, but a 
student of motives. 



ABE'S REBUKE. 

"The first time I ever remember seeing Abe Lin- 
coln," is the testimony of one of his neighbors, "was 
when I was a small boy and had gone with my father 
to attend some kind of an election. One of the neigh- 



STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE 49 

"bors, James Larkins, was there. Larkins was a great 
hand to brag on anything he owned. This time it was 
his horse. He stepped up before Abe, who was in a 
crowd, and commenced talking to him, boasting all 
the while of his animal. 

" 'I have got the best horse in the country,' he 
shouted to his young listener. 'I ran him nine miles 
in exactly three minutes, and he never fetched a long 
breath. ' 

" 'I presume,' said Abe, rather dryly, 'he fetched a 
good many short ones, though.' " 



LINCOLN'S LIZARD STORY. 

A country meeting-house, that was used once a 
month, was quite a distance from any other house. 

The preacher, an old-line Baptist, was dressed in 
coarse linen pantaloons, and shirt of the same material. 
The pants, manufactured after the old fashion, with 
baggy legs and a flap in the front, were made to attach 
to his frame without the aid of suspenders. A single 
button held his shirt in position, and that was at the 
collar. He rose up in the pulpit, and with a loud 
voice announced his text thus: "I am the Christ whom 
I shall represent to-day." 

About this time a little blue lizard ran up his roomy 
pantaloons. The old preacher, not wishing to inter- 
rupt the steady flow of his sermon, slapped away on 
his leg, expecting to arrest the intruder; but his efforts 
were unavailing, and the little fellow kept on ascend- 
ing higher and higher. Continuing the sermon, the 
preacher loosened the central button which graced the 



5° STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. 

waistband of his pantaloons, and with a kick off came 
that easy fitting- garment. But, meanwhile, Mr. Lizard 
had passed the equatorial line of the waistband, and 
was calmly exploring that part of the preacher's 
anatomy which lay underneath the back of his shirt. 
Things were now growing interesting, but the sermon 
was still grinding on. The next movement on the 
preacher's part was for the collar button, and with 
one sweep of his arm off came the tow linen shirt. 
The congregation sat for an instant as if dazed; at 
length one old lady in the rear part of the room rose 
up, and glancing at the excited object in the pulpit, 
shouted at the top of her voice, "If you represent 
Christ, then I'm done with the Bible." 



HOW LINCOLN OBTAINED THE NAME OF 
"HONEST ABE." 

During the year that Lincoln was in Denton Offutt's 
store, that gentleman, whose business was somewhat 
widely and unwisely spread about the country, ceased 
to prosper in his finances, and finally failed. The 
store was shut up, the mill was closed, and Abraham 
Lincoln was out of business. The year had been one 
of great advance, in many respects. He had made 
new and valuable acquaintances, read many bonks, 
mastered the grammar of his own tongue, won multi- 
tudes of friends, and became ready for a step still 
further in advance. Those who could appreciate 
brains respected him, and those whose ideas of a man 
related to his muscles were devoted to him. It was 
while he was performing the work of the store that he 



STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. 5* 

acquired the sobriquet "Honest Abe" — a characteriza- 
tion that he never dishonored, and an abbreviation that 
he never outgrew. He was judge, arbitrator, referee, 
umpire, authority, in all disputes, games and matches 
of man-flesh, horse-flesh, a pacificator in all quarrels; 
everybody's friend; the best-natured, the most sen- 
sible, the best-informed, the most modest and unassum- 
ing, the kindest, gentlest, roughest, strongest, best 
fellow in all New Salem and the region round about. 



LINCOLN CARRIES A DRUNKARD EIGHTY RODS 
ON HIS BACK. 

An instance of young Lincoln's practical humanity 
at an early period of his life is recorded as follows: 
One evening, while returning from a "raising" in his 
wide neighborhood, with a number of companions, he 
discovered a stray horse, with saddle and bridle upon 
him. The horse was recognized as belonging to a man 
who was accustomed to excess in drink, and it was sus- 
pected at once that the owner was not far off. A short 
search only was necessary to confirm the suspicion of 
the men. 

The poor drunkard was found in a perfectly helpless 
condition, upon the chilly ground. Abraham's com- 
panions urged the cowardly policy of leaving him to 
his fate, but young Lincoln would not hear to the 
proposition. At his request, the miserable sot was 
lifted on his shoulders, and he actually carried him 
eighty rods to the nearest house. Sending word to his 
father that he should not be back that night, with the 
reason for his absence, he attended and nursed the 



52 STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. 

man until the morning, and had the pleasure of believ- 
ing that he had saved his life. 



HOW LINCOLN EARNED HIS FIRST DOLLAR. 

The following interesting story was told by Mr. Lin- 
coln to Mr. Seward and a few friends one evening in 
the Executive Mansion at Washington. The Presi- 
dent said: "Seward, you never heard, did you, how I 
earned my first dollar?" 

"No," rejoined Mr. Seward. 

"Well," continued Mr. Lincoln, "I belonged, you 
know, to what they called down South the 'scrubs.' 
We had succeeded in raising, chiefly by my labor, 
sufficient produce, as I thought, to justify me in tak- 
ing it down the river to sell. 

"After much persuasion, I got the consent of mother 
to go, and constructed a little flatboat, large enough to 
take a barrel or two of things that we had gathered, 
with myself and little bundle, down to the Southern 
market. A steamer was coming down the river. We 
have, you know, no wharves on the Western streams; 
and the custom was, if passengers were at any of the 
landings, for them to go out in a boat, the steamer 
Stopping and taking them on board. 

"I was contemplating my new flatboat, and wonder- 
ing whether I could make it strong or improve it in 
any particular, when two men came down to the shore 
in carriages with trunks, and looking at the differenl 
boats singled out mine, ami asked, 'Who owns this?' 
I answered, somewhat modestly, '1 do.' 'Will you,' 
said <>ne <>f tluun, 'take us and our trunks out to the 



STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. 53 

steamer?' 'Certainly,' said I. I was very glad to have 
the chance of earning something. I supposed that 
each of them would give me one or two or three bits. 
The trunks were put on my flatboat, the passengers 
seated themselves on the trunks, and I sculled them 
out to the steamboat. 

"They got on board, and I lifted up their heavy 
trunks, and put them on deck. The steamer was 
about to put on steam again, when I called out that 
they had forgotten to pay me. Each of them took 
from his pocket a silver half-dollar, and threw it on the 
floor of my boat. I could scarcely believe my eyes 
when I picked up the money. Gentlemen, you may 
think it was a very little thing, and in these days it 
seems to me a trifle; but it was a most important 
incident in my life. I could scarcely credit, that I, a 
poor boy, had earned a dollar. The world seemed 
wider and fairer before me. I was a more hopeful and 
confident being from that time." 



YOUNG LINCOLN "PULLS^FODDER" TWO DAYS FOR 
a damag'ed BOOK. 

The following incident, illustrating several traits 
already developed in the early boyhood of Lincoln, is 
vouched for by a citizen of Evansville, Ind., who knew 
him in the days referred to : 

In his eagerness to acquire knowledge, young Lin- 
coln had borrowed of Mr. Crawford, a neighboring 
farmer, a copy of Weem's Life of Washington — the 
only one known to be in existence in that region of the 
country. Before he had finished reading the book, it 



54 STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. 

had been left, by a not unnatural oversight, in a win- 
dow. Meantime, a rain storm came on and the book 
was so thoroughly wet as to make it nearly worthless. 
This mishap caused him much pain ; but he went, in 
all honesty, to Mr. Crawford with the ruined book, 
explained the calamity that had happened through his 
neglect, and offered, not having sufficient money, to 
"work out" the value of the book. 

"Well, Abe," said Mr. Crawford, after due delibera- 
tion, "as it's you, I won't be hard on you. Just come 
over and pull fodder for me two days, and we will call 
our accounts even." 

The offer was readily accepted, and the engagement 
literally fulfilled. As a boy, no less than since, Abra- 
ham had an honorable conscientiousness, integrity, 
honesty, and an ardent love of knowledge. 



YOUNG LINCOLN NARROWLY ESCAPES DEATH. 

A little incident occurred while young Lincoln lived 
in Indiana, which illustrates the early hardships and 
surroundings to which lie was subjected. On one occa- 
sion he was obliged to take his grist upon the back of 
his father's horse, and go fifty miles to get it ground. 
The mill itself was very rude, and driven by horse- 
power, the customers were obliged to wait their 
"turn," without reference to their distance from home, 
and then used their own horse to propel the machinery. 
On this occasion, Abraham, having arrived at his turn, 

fastened his mare to the lever, and was following her 

closely upon her rounds, when, urging her with the 
switch, ami "clucking" to her in the usual way, he 




LINCOLN AS A RAIL SFLITTER. 



STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. 57 

received a kick from her which prostrated him, and 
made him insensible. With the first instant of return- 
ing consciousness, he finished the cluck, which he had 
commenced when he received the kick (a fact for the 
psychologist), and with the next he probably thought 
about getting home, where he arrived at last, battered, 
but ready for further service. 



NO VICES— FEW VIRTUES. 

Riding at one time in the stage, with an old Ken- 
tuckian who was returning from Missouri, Lincoln 
excited the old gentleman's surprise by refusing to 
accept either of tobacco or French brandy. 

When they separated that afternoon, the Kentuckian 
to take another stage bound for Louisville, he shook 
hands warmly with Lincoln, and said good-humoredly, 
"See here, stranger, you're a clever but strange com- 
panion. I may never see you again, and I don't want 
to offend you, but I want to say this: My experience 

has taught me that a man who has no vices has d d 

few virtues. Good-day. ' ' 

Lincoln enjoyed this reminiscence of his journey, 
and took great pleasure in relating it. 



LINCOLN'S PROPHECY. 



An old copy-book of Lincoln's has the following, 
written when he was fourteen years old : 

" 'Tis Abraham Lincoln holds the pen, 
He will be good, but God knows when!" 



58 STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. 

HOW LINCOLN THRASHED A BULLY AND MADE A 
LIFELONG FRIEND. 

While showing goods to two or three women in 
Offutt's store one day, a bully came in and began to 
talk in an offensive manner, using much profanity, 
and evidently wishing to provoke a quarrel. Lincoln 
leaned over the counter, and begged him, as ladies 
were present, not to indulge in such talk. The bully 
retorted that the opportunity had come for which he 
had long sought, and he would like to see the man who 
could hinder him from saying anything he might 
choose to say. Lincoln, still cool, told him that if he 
would wait until the ladies had retired he would hear 
what he had to say, and give him any satisfaction he 
desired. 

As soon as the women were gone, the man became 
furious. Lincoln heard his boasts and abuse for a 
time, and, finding he was not to be put off without a 
fight, said: "Well, if you must be whipped, I suppose 
I may as well whip you as any other man." This was 
just what the bully had been seeking, he said, so out 
of doors they went, and Lincoln made short work of 
him. He threw him upon the ground, held him there 
as if he had been a child, and gathering some "smart- 
weed" which grew upon the spot, rubbed it into his 
face and eves, until the fellow bellowed with pain. 
Lincoln did all this without a particle of anger, and, 
when the Jul) was finished, went immediately for 

water, washed his victim's face, and did everything he 

COUld t<> alleviate his distress. Tho upshot of the 

matter was that tin- man became his fast and lifelong 

friend, and was a better ni.m from that day. It was 



STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. 59 

impossible then, and it always remained, for Lincoln 
to cherish resentment and revenge. 



AN INCIDENT FROM LINCOLN'S EXPERIENCE ON A 
MISSISSIPPI FLATBOAT. 

At the age of nineteen, Abraham made his second 
essay in navigation, and at this time caught something 
more than a glimpse of the great world in which he 
was destined to play so important a part. A trading 
neighbor applied to him to take charge of a flatboat 
and its cargo, and, in company with his own son, to 
take it to the sugar plantations near New Orleans. 
The entire business of the trip was placed in Abra- 
ham's hands. The fact tells its own story touching 
the young man's reputation for capacity and integrity. 
He had never made the trip, knew nothing of the 
journey, was unaccustomed to business transactions, 
had never been much upon the river; but his tact, 
ability and honesty were so trusted that the trader was 
willing to risk his cargo and his son in Lincoln's care. 

The incidents of a trip like this were not likely to be 
exciting, but there were many social chats with the 
settlers and hunters along the banks of the Ohio and 
the Mississippi, and there was much hailing of similar 
craft afloat. Arriving at a sugar plantation some- 
where between Natchez and New Orleans, the boat 
was pulled in, and tied to the shore for purposes of 
trade; and here an incident occurred which was 
sufficiently exciting, and one which, in the memory of 
recent events, reads somewhat strangely. Here seven 
negroes attempted the life of the future liberator of 
the race, and it is not improbable that some of them 



6o STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. 

have lived to be emancipated by his proclamation. 
Night had fallen, and the two tired voyagers had lain 
down on their hard bed for sleep. Hearing a noise on 
shore, Abraham shouted: 

"Who's there?" 

The noise continuing and no one replying, he sprang 
to his feet and saw seven negroes, evidently bent on 
plunder. 

Abraham guessed the errand at once, and seizing a 
hand-spike, rushed towards them, and knocked one 
into the water the moment he touched the boat. The 
second, third, and fourth who leaped on board were 
served in the same rough way. Seeing that they were 
not likely to make headway in their thieving enter- 
prise, the remainder turned to flee. Abraham and his 
companion, growing excited and warm with their 
work, leaped on shore, and followed them. Both were 
too swift on foot for the negroes, and all of them 
received a severe pounding. They returned to their 
boat just as the others escaped from the water, but the 
latter fled into the darkness as fast as their legs could 
carry them. Abraham and his fellow in the fight 
were both injured, but not disabled. Not being 
armed, and unwilling to wait until the negroes had 
received reinforcements, they cut adrift, and floated 
down a mile or two, tied up to the bank again, and 
watched and waited for the morning. 

The trip was brought at length to a successful end. 
The cargo, "load," as they called it, was all disposed 
of for money, the boat itself sold for lumber, and the 

young men retraced the- passage, partly, at least, on 
shore and on foot, Occupying several weeks in the 

difficult and tedious journey. 



STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. 61 

"HONEST ABE" AS A COUNTRY STOREKEEPER. 

Lincoln could not rest for an instant under the con- 
sciousness that he had, even unwittingly, defrauded 
anybody. On one occasion, while clerking in Offutt's 
store, at New Salem, 111., he sold a woman a little bale 
of goods, amounting in value by the reckoning to two 
dollars and twenty cents. He received the money, and 
the woman went away. On adding the items of the 
bill again to make himself sure of correctness, he 
found that he had taken six and a quarter cents too 
much. It was night, and, closing and locking the 
store, he started out on foot, a distance of two or three 
miles, for the house of his defrauded customer, and, 
delivering over to her the sum whose possession had 
so much troubled him, went home satisfied. 

On another occasion, just as he was closing the store 
for the night, a woman entered, and asked for a half 
pound of tea. The tea was weighed out and paid for, 
and the store was left for the night. The next morn- 
ing Lincoln entered to begin the duties of the day, 
when he discovered a four-ounce weight on the scales. 
He saw at once that he had made a mistake, and, 
shutting the store, he took a long walk before break- 
fast to deliver the remainder of the tea. These are 
very humble incidents, but they illustrate the man's 
perfect conscientiousness — his sensitive honesty — 
better, perhaps, than they would if they were of greater 
moment. 



"HONEST ABE" AS VILLAGE POSTMASTER. 

Mr. Lincoln was appointed postmaster by President 
Jackson. The office was too insignificant to be con- 



62 STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. 

sidered politically, and it was given to the young man 
because everybody liked him, and because he was the 
only man who was willing to take it who could make out 
the returns. He was exceedingly pleased with the 
appointment, because it gave him a chance to read 
every newspaper that was taken in the vicinity. He 
had never been able to get half the newspapers he 
wanted before, and the office gave him the prospect of 
a constant feast. Not wishing to be tied to the office, 
as it yielded him no revenue that would reward him 
for the confinement, he made a post-office of his hat. 
Whenever he went out the letters were placed in his 
hat. When an anxious looker for a letter found the 
postmaster, he had found his office; and the public 
officer, taking off his hat, looked over his mail wher- 
ever the public might find him. He kept the office 
until it was discontinued, or removed to Petersburg. 

One of the most beautiful exhibitions of Mr. Lin- 
coln's rigid honesty occurred in connection with the 
settlement of his accounts with the Post-office Depart- 
ment, several years afterward. 

It was after he had become a lawyer, and had been a 
legislator. He had passed through a period of great 
poverty, had acquired his education in the law in the 
midst of many perplexities, inconveniences, and hard- 
ships, and had met with temptations such as few men 
could resist, to make a temporary use of an}' money he 
might have in his hands. One day, seated in the law 
office of his partner, the agent of the Post-office 
Department entered, and inquired If Abraham Lincoln 
was within. Mr. Lincoln responded to his name, and 
was informed that the agent had called to collect the 
balance due the Department since the discontinuance 



STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. 6 3 

of the New Salem office. A shade of perplexity passed 
over Mr. Lincoln's face, which did not escape the 
notice of friends present. One of them said at once: 

"Lincoln, if you are in want of money, let us help 
you." 

He made no reply, but suddenly rose, and pulled out 
from a pile of books a little old trunk, and, returning 
to the table, asked the agent how much the amount of 
his debt was. The sum was named, and then Mr. 
Lincoln opened the trunk, pulled out a little package 
of coin wrapped in a cotton rag, and counted out the 
exact sum, amounting to something more than seven- 
teen dollars. After the agent had left the room, he 
remarked quietly that he had never used any man's 
money but his own. Although this sum had been in 
his hands during all these years, he had never regarded 
it as available, even for any temporary use of his own. 



A FLATBOAT INCIDENT ILLUSTRATING LINCOLN'S 
READY INGENUITY. 

Governor Yates, of Illinois, in a speech at Spring- 
field, quoted one of Mr. Lincoln's early friends — W. T. 
Green — as having said that the first time he ever saw 
Mr. Lincoln, he was in the Sangamon River with his 
trousers rolled up five feet, more or less, trying to 
pilot a fiatboat over a mill-dam. The boat was so full 
of water that it was hard to manage. Lincoln got the 
prow over, and then, instead of waiting to bail the 
water out, bored a hole through the projecting part 
and let it run out; affording a forcible illustration of 
the ready ingenuity of the future President in the 
quick invention of moral expedients* 



64 STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. 

A WRESTLING MATCH. 

There lived, at the time young; Lincoln resided at 
New Salem, 111., in and around the village, a band of 
rollicking fellows, or, more properly, roistering 
rowdies, known as the "Clary's Grove Boys." The 
special tie that united them was physical courage and 
prowess. These fellows, although they embraced in 
their number many men who have since become 
respectable and influential, were wild and rough beyond 
toleration in any community not made up like that 
which produced them. They pretended to be "regu- 
lators," and were the terror of all who did not acknowl- 
edge their rule; and their mode of securing allegiance 
was by flogging every man who failed to acknowledge 

it. 

They took it upon themselves to try the mettle of 

every new-comer, and to learn the sort of stuff he was 

made of. 

Some of their number was appointed to fight, 
wrestle, or run a foot-race with each incoming 
stranger. Of course, Abraham Lincoln was obliged 
to pass the ordeal. 

Perceiving that he was a man who would not easily 
be floored, they selected their champion, Jack Arm- 
strong, and imposed upon him the task of laying Lin- 
coln upon his back. 

There is no evidence that Lincoln was an unwilling 
party to the sport, for it was what he had always been 
accustomed to. The bout was entered upon, but 
Armstrong soon discovered that he had met more than 
his match. 

The boys were looking on, and seeing that their 
champion was likely to get the worst of it, did after 




LINCOLN'S EARLY HOME AT ELIZABETHTOWN, HARDIN CO., KY. FROM A PHOTO- 
GRAPH TAKEN IN 1895. 



STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. 67 

the manner of such irresponsible bands. They gath- 
ered around Lincoln, struck and disabled him, and 
then Armstrong, by "legging" him, got him down. 

Most men would have been indignant, not to say 
furiously angry, under such foul treatment as this; but 
if Lincoln was either, he did not show it. Getting up 
in perfect good humor, he fell to laughing over his dis- 
comfiture, and joking about it. They had all calcu- 
lated on making him angry, and they intended, with 
the amiable spirit which characterized the "Clary's 
Grove Boys, ' ' to give him a terrible drubbing. They 
were disappointed, and, in their admiration of him, 
immediately invited him to become one of the com- 
pany. 



THE FIRST MEETING OF A FUTURE PRESIDENT 
AND GOVERNOR. 

Lincoln was a marked and a peculiar young man. 
People talked about him. His studious habits, his 
greed for information, his thorough mastery of the 
difficulties of every new position in which he was 
placed, his intelligence touching all matters of public 
concern, his unwearying good-nature, his skill in tell- 
ing a story, his great athletic power, his quaint, odd 
ways, his uncouth appearance, all tended to bring 
him in sharp contrast with the dull mediocrity by 
which he was surrounded. Denton Offutt, his old 
employer in the store, said, after having had a conver- 
sation with Lincoln, that the young man "had talent 
enough in him to make a President. ' ' In every circle 
in which he found himself, whether refined or coarse, 
he was always the center of attraction. 



68 STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. 

William G. Greene says that when he (Greene) was 
a member of the Illinois College, he brought home 
with him, on a vacation, Richard Yates, afterwards 
Governor of the State, and some other boys, and, in 
order to entertain them, took them up to see Lincoln. 
He found him in his usual position and at his usual 
occupation. He was flat on his back, on a cellar door, 
reading a newspaper. This was the manner in which 
a President of the United States and a Governor of 
Illinois became acquainted with each other. Mr. 
Greene says that Lincoln then repeated the whole of 
Burns, and was a devoted student of Shakespeare. 
So the rough backwoodsman, self-educated, enter- 
tained the college boys, and was invited to dine with 
them on bread and milk. How he managed to upset 
his bowl of milk is not a matter of history, but the fact 
that he did so, as is the further fact that Greene's 
mother, who loved Lincoln, tried to smooth over the 
accident and to relieve the young man's embarrass-, 
ment. 



LINCOLN'S NAME GOOD FOR A BED. 

In the year 1S55 or 1S56, George B. Lincoln, Esq., 
of Brooklyn, was traveling through the west in connec- 
tion with a large New York dry-goods establishment. 
He found himself one night in a town on the Illinois 

River, by the name of Naples. The only tavern of the 
place had evidently been constructed with reference to 
business on a small scale. Poor as the prospect seemed, 
Mr. Lincoln had no alternative but to put tip at the 
place. 



STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. 69 

The supper-room was also used as a lodging-room. 
Mr. Lincoln told his host that he thought he would "go 
to bed." 

"Bed!" echoed the landlord. "There is no bed for 
you in this house unless you sleep with that man yon- 
der. He has the only one we have to spare. " 

"Well," returned Mr. Lincoln, "the gentleman has 
possession, and perhaps would not like a bed-fellow." 

Upon this a grizzly head appeared out of the pillows, 
and said: 

"What is your name?" 

"They call me Lincoln at home," was the reply. 

"Lincoln!" repeated the stranger; "any connection 
of our Illinois Abraham?" 

"No," replied Mr. Lincoln. "I fear not." 

"Well," said the old gentleman, "I will let any man 
by the name of 'Lincoln' sleep with me, just for the 
sake of the name. You have heard of Abe?" he 
inquired. 

"Oh, yes, very often," replied Mr. Lincoln. "No 
man could travel far in this State without hearing of 
him, and I would be very glad to claim connection if I 
could do so honestly. ' ' 

"Well," said the old gentleman, "my name is Sim- 
mons. 'Abe' and I used to live and work together 
when young men. Many a job of wood-cutting and 
rail-splitting have I done up with him. Abe Lincoln 
was the likeliest boy in God's world. He would work 
all day as hard as any of us — and study by firelight in 
the log-house half the night; and in this way he made 
himself a thorough, practical surveyor. Once, during 
those days, I was in the upper part of the State, and I 
met General Ewing, whom President Jackson had sent 



7o STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. 

to the Northwest to make surveys. I told him about 
Abe Lincoln, what a student he was, and that I wanted 
he should give me a job. He looked over his memo- 
randum, and, holding out a paper, said: 

1 'There is County must be surveyed; if your 

friend can do the work properly, I shall be glad to have 
him undertake it — the compensation will be six hun- 
dred dollars.' 

"Pleased as I could be, I hastened to Abe, after I 
got home, with an account of what I had secured for 
him. He was sitting before the fire in the log-cabin 
when I told him; and what do you think was his 
answer? When I finished, he looked up very quietly, 
and said: 

" 'Mr. Simmons, I thank you very sincerely for your 
kindness, but I don't think I will undertake the job.' 

" 'In the name of wonder,' said I, 'why? Six hun- 
dred does not grow upon every bush out here in 
Illinois.' 

" 'I know that,' said Abe, 'and I need the money bad 
enough, Simmons, as you know; but I have never been 
under obligation to a Democratic Administration, and 
I never intend to be so long as I can get my living 
another way. General Ewing must find another man 
to do his work. ' " 

Mr. Carpenter related this story to the President one 
day, and asked him if it were true. 

"Pollard Simmons!" said Lincoln. "Well do I 
remember him. It is correct about our working 
together, but the old man must have stretched the 
facts somewhat about the survey of the County. I 
think I should have been very glad of the job at the 
time, no matter what Administration was in power." 



STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. 71 

Notwithstanding this, however, Mr. Carpenter was 
inclined to believe Mr. Simmons was not far out of the 
way, and thought this seemed very characteristic of 
what Abraham Lincoln may be supposed to have been 
at twenty-three or twenty- five years of age. 



AN UNSUCCESSFUL VENTURE AS A MERCHANT IN 
NEW SALEM. 

It is interesting to recall the fact that at one time 
Mr. Lincoln seriously took into consideration the 
project of learning the blacksmith's trade. He was 
without means, and felt the immediate necessity of 
undertaking some business that would give him bread. 
It was while he was entertaining this project that an 
event occurred which in his undetermined state of 
mind seemed to open a way to success in another 
quarter. 

A man named Reuben Radford, the keeper of a 
small store in the village of New Salem, had somehow 
incurred the displeasure of the Clary's Grove Boys, 
who had exercised their "regulating" derogatives by 
irregularly breaking his windows. William G. Greene, 
a friend of young Lincoln, riding by Radford's store 
soon afterward, was hailed by him, and told that he 
intended to sell out. Mr. Greene went into the store, 
and offered him at random four hundred dollars for his 
stock. The offer was immediately accepted. 

Lincoln happening in the next day, and being 
familiar with the value of the goods, Mr. Greene pro- 
posed to him to take an inventory of the stock, and see 
what sort of a bargain he had made. This he did, and 



72 STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. 

it was found that the goods were worth six hundred 
dollars. Lincoln then made him an offer of a hundred 
and twenty-five dollars for his bargain, with the propo- 
sition that he and a man named Berry, as his partner, 
should take his (Greene's) place in the notes given to 
Radford. Mr. Greene agreed to the arrangement, but 
Radford declined it, except on condition that Greene 
would be their security, and this he at last assented to. 

Berry proved to be a dissipated, trifling man, and 
the business soon became a wreck. Mr. Greene was 
obliged to go in and help Mr. Lincoln close it up, and 
not only do this but pay Radford's notes. All that 
young Lincoln won from the store was some very valu- 
able experience, and the burden of a debt to Greene 
which, in conversations with the latter, he always 
spoke of as the national debt. But this national debt, 
unlike the majority of those which bear the title, was 
paid to the utmost farthing in after years. 

Six years afterwards, Mr. Greene, who knew nothing 
of the law in such cases, and had not troubled himself 
to inquire about it, and who had in the meantime 
removed to Tennessee, received notice from Mr. Lin- 
coln that he was ready to pay him what he paid for 
Berry — he (Lincoln) being legally bound to pay the 
liabilities of his partner. 



now LINCOLN BECAME A CAPTAIN IX 'nil-: r.LACK 
hawk war. 

In the threatening aspect of the Black Hawk War, 
Governor Reynolds issued a call for volunteers, and 
among the companies that immediately responded was 



STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. 73 

one from Menard County, Illinois. Many of the 
volunteers were from New Salem and Clary's Grove, 
and Lincoln, being out of business, was first to enlist. 
The company being full, they held a meeting at Rich- 
land for the election of officers. Lincoln had won 
many hearts, and they told him that he must be their 
captain. It was an office that he did not aspire to, and 
one for which he felt that he had no special fitness ; 
but he consented to be a candidate. There was but 
one other candidate for the office (a Mr. Kirkpatrick), 
and he was one of the most influential men of the 
County. Previously, Kirkpatrick had been an em- 
ployer of Lincoln, and was so overbearing in his treat- 
ment of the young man that the latter left him. 

The simple mode of their electing their captain, 
adopted by the company, was by placing the candi- 
dates apart, and telling the men to go and stand with 
the one they preferred. Lincoln and his competitor 
took their positions, and then the word was given. At 
least three out of every four went to Lincoln at once. 
When it was seen by those who had arranged them- 
selves with the other candidate that Lincoln was the 
choice of the majority of the company, they left their 
places, one by one, and came over to the successful 
side, until Lincoln's opponent in the friendly strife 
was left standing almost alone. 

"I felt badly to see him cut so," says a witness of 
the scene. 

Here was an opportunity for revenge. The humble 
laborer was his employer's captain, but the oppor- 
tunity was never improved. Mr. Lincoln frequently 
confessed that no subsequent success of his life had 
given him half the satisfaction that this election did. 



74 STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. 

He had achieved public recognition; and to one so 
humbly bred, the distinction was inexpressibly delight- 
ful. 

LINCOLN APPLIES FOR A PATENT. 

That he had enough mechanical genius to make him 
a good mechanic there is no doubt. With such rude 
tools as were at his command he had made cabins 
and flatboats; and after his mind had become 
absorbed in public and professional affairs, he often 
recurred to his mechanical dreams for amusement. 
One of his dreams took form, and he endeavored to 
make a practical matter of it. He had had experience 
in the early navigation of the Western rivers. One of 
the most serious hindrances to this navigation was low 
water, and the lodgment of the various craft on the 
shifting shoals and bars with which these rivers 
abound. He undertook to contrive an apparatus 
which, folded to the hull of the boat like a bellows, 
might be inflated on occasions, and, by its levity, 
lifted over any obstruction upon which it might rest. 
On this contrivance, illustrated by a model whittled 
out by himself, and now preserved in the Patent Office 
in Washington, he secured letters patent; but it is cer- 
tain that the navigation of the Western rivers was not 
revolutionized by it. 



LINCOLN THE TALLEST OF THE "LONG NINE." 

The Sangamon County delegation to the Illinois 
Legislature, in 1834, of which Lincoln was a member, 
consisting of nine representatives, was so remarkable 
for the physical altitude of its members that they were 



STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. 75 

known as "The Long Nine. " Not a member of the 
number was less than six feet high, and Lincoln was 
the tallest of the nine, as he was the leading man 
intellectually in and out the House. 

Among those who composed the House were Gen. 
John A. McClernand, afterward a member of Con- 
gress; Jesse K. DeBois, afterwards Auditor of the 
State ; James Semple, afterwards twice the Speaker of 
the House of Representatives, and subsequently 
United States Senator; Robert Smith, afterwards 
member of Congress ; John Hogan, afterwards a mem- 
ber of Congress from St. Louis; Gen. James Shields, 
afterwards United States Senator (who died recently) ; 
John Dement, who has since been Treasurer of the 
State ; Stephen A. Douglas, whose subsequent career 
is familiar to all ; Newton Cloud, President of the Con- 
vention which framed the present State Constitution 
of Illinois; John J. Hardin, who fell at Buena Vista; 
John Moore, afterward Lieutenant-Governor of the 
State; William A. Richardson, subsequently United 
States Senator, and William McMurtry, who has since 
been Lieutenant-Governor of the State. 

This list does not embrace all who had then, or who 
have since been distinguished, but it is large enough to 
show that Lincoln was, during the term of this Legis- 
lature, thrown into association and often into antag- 
onism, with the brightest men of the new State. 



LINCOLN'S ENTRANCE INTO PUBLIC LIFE. 
In 1834, Lincoln was a candidate for the Legislature, 
and was elected by the highest vote cast for any candi- 
date. Major John T. Stuart, an officer in the Black 



76 STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. 

Hawk War, and whose acquaintance Lincoln made at 
Beardstown, was also elected. Major Stuart had 
already conceived the highest opinion of the young 
man, and seeing much of him during the canvass for 
the election, privately advised him to study law. 
Stuart was himself engaged in a large and lucrative 
practice at Springfield. 

Lincoln said he was poor — that he had no money to 
buy books, or to live where books might be borrowed 
or used. Major Stuart offered to lend him all he 
needed, and he decided to take the kind lawyer's 
advice, and accept his offer. At the close of the can- 
vass which resulted in his election, he walked to Spring- 
field, borrowed "a load" of books of Stuart, and took 
them home with him to New Salem. 

Here he began the study of law in good earnest, 
though with no preceptor. He studied while he had 
bread, and then started out on a surveying tour to win 
the money that would buy more. 

One who remembers his habits during this period 
says that he went, day after day, for weeks, and sat 
under an oak tree near New Salem and read, moving 
around to keep in the shade as the sun moved. He 
was so much absorbed that some people thought and 
said he was crazy. 

Not unfrequently he met and passed his best friends 
without noticing them. The truth was that he had 
found the pursuit of his life, and had become very 
much in earnest. 

During Lincoln's campaign he possessed and rode a 
horse, to procure which he had quite likely sold his 
compass and chain, for, as soon as the canvass had 
closed, he sold the horse and bought these instruments, 










LINCOLN S FIRST HOME IN ILLINOIS. 




"T'WtWIMffi 



LINCOLN'S HOME IN SPRINGFIELD, ILL. 



STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. 79 

indispensable to him in the only pursuit by which he 
could make his living. 

When the time for the assembly of the Legislature 
had arrived Lincoln dropped his law books, shouldered 
his pack, and, on foot, trudged to Vandalia, then the 
Capital of the State, about a hundred miles, to make 
his entrance into public life. 



INCIDENT IN THE BLACK HAWK WAR. 

An old Indian strayed, hungry and helpless, into the 
camp one day. The soldiers were conspiring to kill 
him as a spy. 

A letter from General Cass, recommending him, for 
his past kind and faithful service to the whites, the 
trembling old savage drew from beneath the folds of 
his blankets; but failed in any degree to appease the 
wrath of the men who confronted him. "Make an 
example of him," they exclaimed; "the letter is a 
forgery, and he is a spy." 

They might have put their threats into execution had 
not the tall form of their captain, his face swarthy with 
resolution and rage, interposed itself between them and 
their defenseless victim. 

Lincoln's determined look and demand that it must 
not be done were enough. They sullenly desisted, and 
the Indian, unmolested, continued on his way. 



COOL UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 

At one time Major Hill charged Lincoln with mak- 
ing defamatory remarks about his wife. 



80 STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. 

Hill was insulting in his language to Lincoln, who 
never lost his temper. 

When he saw his chance to edge a word in, Lincoln 
denied emphatically using the language or anything 
like that attributed to him. 

He entertained, he insisted, a high regard for Mrs. 
Hill, and the only thing he knew to her discredit was 
the fact that she was Major Hill's wife. 



"THANK YOU, I NEVER DRINK." 

When Lincoln was in the Black Hawk War as cap- 
tain, the volunteer soldiers drank in with delight the 
jests and stories of the tall captain. ^Esop's Fables 
were given a new dress, and the tales of the wild 
adventures that he had brought from Kentucky and 
Indiana were many, but his inspiration was never 
stimulated by recourse to the whisky jug. When his 
grateful and delighted auditors pressed this on him he 
had one reply: "Thank you, I never drink it." 



THE LINCOLN-SHIELDS DUEL. 

The late General Shields was Auditor of the State of 
Illinois in 1839. While he occupied this important 
office he was involved in an "affair of honor" with a 
Springfield lawyer — no less a personage than Abra- 
ham Lincoln. At this time, "James Shields, Auditor," 
was the pride of the young Democracy, and was con- 
sidered a dashing fellow by all, the ladies included. 

In the summer of 1842, the Springfield Journal con- 
tained some letters from the "Lost Township," by a 



STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. 81 

contributor whose nom de plume was "Aunt Becca," 
which held up the gallant young Auditor as "a ball- 
room dandy, floatin' about on the earth without heft 
or substance, just like a lot of cat fur where cats had 
been fightin'." 

These letters caused intense excitement in the town. 
Nobody knew or guessed their authorship. Shields 
swore it would be coffee and pistols for two if he should 
find out who had been lampooning him so unmerci- 
fully. Thereupon "Aunt Becca" wrote another letter, 
which made the furnace of his wrath seven times 
hotter than before, in which she made a very humble 
apology, and offered to let him squeeze her hand for 
satisfaction, adding: 

"If this should not answer, there is one thing more 
I would rather do than get a lickin'. I have all along 
expected to die a widow ; but, as Mr. Shields is rather 
good-looking than otherwise, I must say I don't care if 
we compromise the matter by — really, Mr. Printer, I 
can't help blushing — but I must come out — I — but 
widowed modesty — well, if I must, I must — wouldn't 
he — maybe sorter let the old grudge drap if I was to 
consent to be — be — his wife? I know he is a fightin' 
man, and would rather fight than eat; but isn't 
marryin' better than fightin', though it does sometimes 
run into it? And I don't think, upon the whole, I'd be 
sich a bad match neither; I'm not over sixty, and am 
just four feet three in my bare feet, and not much more 
around the girth; and for color, I wouldn't turn my 
back to nary a girl in the Lost Townships. But, after 
all, maybe I'm counting my chickens before they're 
hatched, and dreamin' of matrimonial bliss when the 
only alternative reserved for me may be a lickin'. Jeff 



82 STORIES OF LINCOLN'S EARLY LIFE. 

tells me the way these fire-eaters do is to give the 
challenged party the choice of weapons, which being 
the case, I tell you in confidence, I never fight with 
anything but broomsticks or hot water, or a shovelful 
of coals, or some such thing; the former of which, 
being somewhat like a shillelah, may not be so very 
objectionable to him. I will give him a choice, how- 
ever, in one thing, and that is whether, when we fight, 
I shall wear breeches or he petticoats, for I presume 
this change is sufficient to place us on an equality." 

Of course, some one had to shoulder the responsi- 
bility of these letters after such a shot. The real 
author was none other than Miss Mary Todd, after- 
ward the wife of Abraham Lincoln, to whom she was 
engaged, and who was in honor bound to assume, for 
belligerent purposes, the responsibility of her sharp 
pen-thrusts. Mr. Lincoln accepted the situation. 
Not long after, the two men, with their seconds, were 
on their way to the field of honor. But the affair was 
fixed up without any fighting, and thus ended in a 
fizzle the Lincoln-Shields duel of the Lost Township. 



Stories of Lincoln 
as a Lawyer. 



LINCOLN THE STUDENT. 

That Lincoln's attempt to make a lawyer of himself 
under the adverse and unpromising circumstances ex- 
cited comment is not to be wondered at. 

Russell Goodby, an old man who still survives, told 
the following: He had often employed Lincoln to do 
farm work for him, and was surprised to find him one 
day, sitting barefoot on the summit of a woodpile, and 
attentively reading a book. 

"This being an unusual thing for farm hands at that 
early date to do, I asked him," relates Goodby, "what 
he was reading. 

"He answered, 'I'm studying. 

" 'Studying what?' I inquired. 

" 'Law, sir,' was the emphatic response. It was 
really too much for me, as I looked at him sitting there 
proud as Cicero." 

"WELL, SPEED, I'M MOVED." 
Speed, who was a prosperous young merchant, 
reports that Lincoln's personal effects consisted of a 
pair of saddle-bags, containing two or three lawbooks, 



84 STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 

and a few pieces of clothing. Riding on a borrowed 
horse, he thus made his appearance in Springfield. 
When he discovered that a single bedstead would cost 
seventeen dollars, he said, "It is probably cheap 
enough, but I have not money enough to pay for it." 

When Speed offered to trust him, he said: "If I fail 
here as a lawyer, I will probably never pay you at all. ' ' 
Then Speed offered to share a large double bed with 
him. "Where is your room?" Lincoln asked. 
"Upstairs," said Speed, pointing from the store lead- 
ing to his room. 

Without saying a word, he took his saddle-bags on 
his arm, went upstairs, set them down on the floor, 
came down again, and with a face beaming with pleas- 
ure and smiles, exclaimed: "Well, Speed, I'm moved." 



LINCOLN RESCUES A PIG FROM A BAD 
PREDICAMENT. 

An amusing incident occurred in connection with 
"riding the circuit," which gives a pleasant glimpse 
into the good lawyer's heart. He was riding by a deep 
slough, in which, to his exceeding p;iin, he saw a pig 
struggling, and with such faint efforts that it was evi- 
dent that he could not extricate himself from the mud. 
Mr. Lincoln looked at the pig and the mud which 
enveloped him, and then looked at some new clothes 
with which he had hut a short time before enveloped 
himself. Deciding against the claims of the pig, he 
rode on, but he could not get rid of the vision of the 
poor brute, and, at last, after riding two miles, he 
turned back, determined to rescue the animal at the 




LINCOLN RESCUES A PIG. 



STORIES OP LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 87 

expense of his new clothes. Arrived at the spot, he 
tied his horse, and coolly went to work to build of old 
rails a passage to the bottom of the hole. Descending 
on these rails, he seized the pig and dragged him out, 
but not without serious damage to the clothes he wore. 
Washing his hands in the nearest brook, and wiping 
them on the grass, he mounted his gig and rode 
along. He then fell to examining the motive that 
sent him back to the release of the pig. At the first 
thought it seemed to be pure benevolence, but, at 
length, he came to the conclusion that it was selfish- 
ness, for he certainly went to the pig's relief in order 
(as he said to the friend to whom he related the inci- 
dent), "to take a pain out of his own mind." This 
is certainly a new view of the nature of sympathy; 
and one which it will be well for the casuist to 
examine. 

HOW LINCOLN INVESTED HIS FIRST FIVE HUN- 
DRED DOLLARS FOR THE BENEFIT OF 
HIS STEP-MOTHER. 

Soon after Mr. Lincoln entered upon his profession 
at Springfield, he was engaged in a criminal case in 
which it was thought there was little chance of suc- 
cess. Throwing all his powers into it, he came off 
victorious, and promptly received for his services five 
hundred dollars. A legal friend calling upon him the 
next morning found him sitting before a table, upon 
which his money was spread out, counting it over and 
over. 

"Look here, Judge," said he. "See what a heap of 

money I've got from the case. Did you ever see 

anything like it? Why, I never had so much money in 



88 STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 

my life before, put it all together." Then, crossing 
his arms upon the table, his manner sobering down, 
he added: "I have got just five hundred dollars; if it 
were only seven hundred and fifty, I would go directly 
and purchase a quarter section of land, and settle it 
upon my old step-mother." 

His friend said that if the deficiency was all he 
needed, he would loan him the amount, taking his 
note, to which Mr. Lincoln instantly acceded. 

His friend then said: 

"Lincoln, I would not do just what you have indi- 
cated. Your step-mother is getting old, and will not 
probably live many years. I would settle the property 
upon her for her use during her lifetime, to revert to 
you upon her death." 

With much feeling, Mr. Lincoln replied: 

"I shall do no such thing. It is a poor return at 
best for all the good woman's devotion and fidelity to 
me, and there is not going to be any half-way business 
about it." And so saying, he gathered up his money 
and proceeded forthwith to carry his long-cherished 
purpose into execution. 



A DISTINCTION WITH A DIFFERENCE. 

Lincoln had assisted in the prosecution of a man 
who had appropriated some of his neighbor's hen 
roosts. Jogging home along the highway with the 
foreman of the jury, who had convicted the hen stealer, 
he was complimented by Lincoln on the zeal and 
ability of the prosecution, and remarked: "Why, when 
the country was young, and I was stronger than I am 



STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 89 

now, I didn't mind packing off a sheep now and again, 
but stealing hens!" The good man's scorn could not 
find words to express his opinion of a man who would 
steal hens. 

THAT STAGE-COACH RIDE. 

Thomas H. Nelson, of Terre Haute, Ind., who was 
appointed minister to Chili by Lincoln, when he was 
President, relates the following: 

Judge Abram Hammond, afterwards Governor of 
Indiana, and myself, arranged to go from Terre Haute 
to Indianapolis in the stage-coach. 

As we stepped in we discovered that the entire back 
seat was occupied by a long, lank individual, whose 
head seemed to protrude from one end of the coach 
and his feet from the other. He was the sole occu- 
pant, and was sleeping soundly. Hammond slapped 
him familiarly on the shoulder, and asked him if he 
had chartered the coach that day. 

"Certainly not," and he at once took the front seat, 
politely surrendering to us the place of honor and 
comfort. An odd-looking fellow he was, with a 
twenty-five cent hat, without vest or cravat. Regard- 
ing him as a good subject for merriment, we perpe- 
trated several jokes. 

He took them all with utmost innocence and good 
nature, and joined in the laugh, although at his own 
expense. 

We amazed him with words of length and thunder- 
ing sound. 

After an astounding display of wordy pyrotechnics, 
the dazed and bewildered stranger asked, "What will 
be the upshot of this comet business?" 



9 o STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 

Late in the evening we reached Indianapolis, and 
hurried to Browning's hotel, losing sight of the 
stranger altogether. 

We retired to our room to brush our clothes. In a 
few minutes I descended to the portico, and there 
descried our long, gloomy fellow traveler in the cen- 
ter of an admiring group of lawyers, among whom 
were Judges McLean and Huntington, Albert S. 
White, and Richard W. Thompson, who seemed to be 
amused and interested in a story he was telling. I 
inquired of Browning, the landlord, who he was. 
"Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, a member of Con- 
gress," was his response. 

I was thunderstruck at the announcement. I has- 
tened upstairs and told Hammond the startling news, 
and together we emerged from the hotel by a back 
door, and went down an alley to another house, thus 
avoiding further contact with our distinguished fellow 
traveler. 

Years afterward, when the President-elect was on his 
way to Washington, I was in the same hotel looking 
over the distinguished party, when a long arm reached 
to my shoulder, and a shrill voice exclaimed, "Hello, 
Nelson! do you think, after all, the whole world is 
going to follow the darned thing off?" The words 
were my own in answer to his question in the stage- 
coach. The speaker was Abraham Lincoln. 



ADVICE TO A YOUNG LAWYER 

"Billy, don't shoot too high — aim lower, and the 
common people will understand you. 



STORIES OP LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 91 

"They are the ones you want to reach — at least, 
they are the ones you ought to reach. 

"The educated and refined people will understand 
you, anyway. If you aim too high, your idea will go 
over the heads of the masses, and only hit those who 
need no hitting." 



LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 

Two things were essential to his success in managing 
a case. One was time ; the other was a feeling of con- 
fidence in the justice of the cause he represented. 

He used to say: "If I can free this case from techni- 
calities and get it properly swung to the jury, I'll win 
it." When asked why he went so far back, on a cer- 
tain occasion, in legal history, when he should have 
presumed that the court knew enough history, he 
replied: "There's where you are mistaken. I dared 
not trust the case on the presumption that the court 
knew anything; in fact, I argued it on the presump- 
tion that the court did not know anything." A state- 
ment that may not be as extravagant as one would at 
first suppose. 

When told by a friend that he should speak with 
more vim, and arouse the jury, talk faster and keep 
them awake, he replied: "Give me your little penknife 
with its short blade, and hand me that old jackknife, 
lying on the table." Opening the blade of the pen- 
knife he said: "You see this blade on the point travels 
rapidly, but only through a small portion of space till 
it stops, while the long blade of the jackknife moves 
no faster but through a much greater space than the 
small one. Just so with the long-labored movements 



92 STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 

of the mind. I cannot emit ideas as rapidly as others 
because I am compelled by nature to speak slowly, 
but when I do throw off a thought it comes with some 
effort, it has force to cut its own way and travels a 
greater distance." The above was said to his partner 
in their private office, and was not said boastingly. 

When Lincoln attacked meanness, fraud or vice, he 
was powerful, merciless in his castigation. 

The following are Lincoln's notes for the argument 
of a case where an attempt was being made to defraud 
a soldier's widow, with her little babe, of her pension: 

"No contract, — Not professional services, — Unreas- 
onable charge, — Money retained by Def., not given by 
Pl'ff, — Revolutionary War, — Describe Valley Forge 
privations, — Ice, — Soldiers' Bleeding Feet, — Pl'ff hus- 
band, — Soldier leaving home for Army, — Skin Deft, 
— Close." 

Judgment was made in her behalf, and no charges 
made. 

The following reply was overheard in Lincoln's 
office, where he was in conversation with a man who 
appeared to have a case that Lincoln did not desire: 
"Yes," he said, "we can doubtless gain your case for 
you; we can set a whole neighborhood at loggerheads; 
we can distress a widowed mother and her six father- 
less children, and thereby get for you six hundred dol- 
lars to which you seem to have a legal claim, but 
which rightfully belongs, it appears to me, as much to 
the woman and children as it does to you. You must 
remember that some things legally right are not 
morally right. We shall not take your ease, but will 
give you a little advice for which we will charge you 
nothing. You seem to be a sprightly, energetic man; 



STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 93 

we would advise you to try your hand at making six 
hundred dollars in some other way. ' ' 



LINCOLN'S KNOWLEDGE OF HUMAN NATURE. 

Once, pleading a cause, the opposing lawyer had all 
the advantage of the law in the case ; the weather was 
warm, and his opponent, as was admissible in frontier 
courts, pulled off his coat and vest as he grew warm in 
the argument. 

At that time, shirts with the buttons behind were 
unusual. Lincoln took in the situation at once. Know- 
ing the prejudices of the primitive people against pre- 
tension of all sorts, or any affectation of superior social 
rank, arising, he said: "Gentlemen of the jury, having 
justice on my side, I don't think you will be at all 
influenced by the gentleman's pretended knowledge of 
the law, when you see he does not even know which 
side of his shirt should be in front." There was a 
general laugh, and Lincoln's case was won. 



LINCOLN AND FINANCES. 

Lincoln paid but little attention to the fees and 
money matters of the firm — he usually left all such 
matters to his partner. 

He never entered an item in the account book. 

If anybody paid money to him which belonged to 
the firm, on arriving at the office he divided it with 
his partner, and if he was not there, he would wrap up 
his share in a piece of paper and place it in his 
partner's drawer — marking it with a pencil, Case of 
Roe vs. Doe — Herndon's half," 



94 STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 

LINCOLN DEFENDS THE SON OF AN OLD FRIEND, 
INDICTED FOR MURDER. 

Jack Armstrong, the leader of the "Clary Grove 
Boys," with whom Lincoln early in life had a scuffle 
which "Jack" agreed to call "a drawn battle," in con- 
sequence of his own foul play, afterward became a life- 
long, warm friend of Mr. Lincoln. Later in life the 
rising lawyer would stop at Jack's cabin home, and 
here Mrs. Armstrong, a most womanly person, learned 
to respect Mr. Lincoln. There was no service to 
which she did not make her guest abundantly welcome, 
and he never ceased to feel the tenderest gratitude for 
her kindness. 

At length her husband died, and she became depend- 
ent upon her sons. The oldest of these, while in 
attendance upon a camp meeting, found himself 
involved in a melee, which resulted in the death of a 
young man, and young Armstrong was charged by 
one of his associates with striking the fatal blow. He 
was examined, and imprisoned to await his trial. The 
public mind was in a blaze of excitement, and inter- 
ested parties fed the flame. 

Mr. Lincoln knew nothing of the merits of this case, 
that is certain. He only knew that his old friend, 
Mrs. Armstrong, was in sore trouble ; and he sat down 
at once, and volunteered by letter to defend her son. 
His first act was to secure the postponement, and a 
change of the place of trial. There was too much 
fever in the minds of the immediate public to permit 
of fair treatment. When the trial came on, the case 
looked very hopeless to all but Mr. Lincoln, who bad 
assured himself that the young man was nut guilty. 
The evidence on behalf of the State being all in, and 



STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 97 

looking like a solid and consistent mass of testimony 
against the prisoner, Mr. Lincoln undertook the task 
of analyzing it, and destroying it, which he did in a 
manner that surprised every one. The principal wit- 
ness testified that "by the aid of the brightly shining 
moon he saw the prisoner inflict the death blow with a 
slung shot." Mr. Lincoln proved by the almanac that 
there was no moon shining at that time. The mass of 
testimony against the prisoner melted away, until 
"not guilty" was the verdict of every man present in 
the crowded court-room. 

There is, of course, no record of the plea made on 
this occasion, but it is remembered as one in which 
Mr. Lincoln made an appeal to the sympathies of the 
jury, which quite surpassed his usual efforts of the 
kind, and melted all to tears. The jury were out but 
half an hour, when they returned with their verdict of 
"not guilty. " The widow fainted in the arms of her 
son, who divided his attention between his services to 
her and his thanks to his deliverer. And thus the kind 
woman who cared for the poor young man, and showed 
herself a mother to him in his need, received the life 
of a son, saved from a cruel conspiracy, as her reward, 
from the hands of her grateful beneficiary. 



LINCOLN DEFENDS A WIDOWED PENSIONER WITH 
SUCCESS. 

An old woman of seventy years, the widow of a 
Revolutionary pensioner, came tottering into his law 
office, one day, and, taking a seat, told him that a 
certain pension agent had charged her the exorbitant 



98 STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 

fee of $200 for collecting her claim. Mr. Lincoln was 
satisfied by her representations that she had been 
swindled, and, finding that she was not a resident of 
the town, and that she was poor, gave her money, and 
set about the work of procuring restitution. He 
immediately entered suit against the agent to recover 
a portion of his ill-gotten money. The suit was 
entirely successful, and Mr. Lincoln's address to the 
jury, before which the case was tried, is remembered to 
have been peculiarly touching, by allusions to the poverty 
of the widow, and the patriotism of the husband she 
had sacrificed to secure the nation's independence. 
He had the gratification of paying back to her $100, 
and sent her home rejoicing. 



HOW MRS. LINCOLN SURPRISED HER HUSBAND. 

A funny story is told of how Mrs. Lincoln made a 
little surprise for her husband. 

In the early days it was customary for lawyers to go 
from one county to another on horseback, a journey 
which often required several weeks. On returning 
from one of these jaunts, late one night, Mr. Lincoln 
dismounted from his horse at the familiar corner and 
then turned to go into the house, but stopped; a per- 
fectly unknown structure was before him. Surprised, 
and thinking there must be some mistake, he went 
across the way and knocked at a neighbor's door. 
The family had retired, and so called out: 

"Who's the: 

"Abe Lincoln," was the reply. "I am looking for 
my house. I thought it was across the way, but when 



STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 99 

I went away a few weeks ago, there was only a one- 
story house there, and now there is two. I think I 
must be lost." 

The neighbors then explained that Mrs. Lincoln had 
added another story during his absence. And Mr. 
Lincoln laughed and went to his remodeled house. 



A NOTED HORSE TRADE IN WHICH LINCOLN CON- 
FESSED HE GOT THE WORST OF IT. 

When Abraham Lincoln was a lawyer in Illinois, he 
and a certain judge once got to bantering one another 
about trading horses ; and it was agreed that the next 
morning at nine o'clock they should make a trade, the 
horses to be unseen up to that hour, and no backing 
out, under a forfeiture of $25. 

At the hour appointed, the Judge came up, leading 
the sorriest-looking specimen of a horse ever seen in 
those parts. In a few minutes Mr. Lincoln was seen 
approaching with a wooden saw-horse upon his shoul- 
ders. Great were the shouts and laughter of the 
crowd, and both were greatly increased when Mr. 
Lincoln, on surveying the Judge's animal, set down his 
saw-horse, and exclaimed: "Well, Judge, this is the 
first time I ever got the worst of it in a horse trade. ' ' 



CONSIDERATIONS SHOWN TO RELATIVES. 

One of the most beautiful traits of Mr. Lincoln was 
his considerate regard for the poor and obscure rela- 
tives he had left, plodding along in their humble ways 
of life. Wherever upon his circuit he found them, he 



ioo STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 

always went to their dwellings, ate with them, and, 
when convenient, made their houses his home. He 
never assumed in their presence the slightest superiority 
to them, in the facts and conditions of his life. He 
gave them money when they needed and he possessed 
it. Countless times he was known to leave his com- 
panions at the village hotel, after a hard day's work in 
the court-room, and spend the evening with these old 
friends and companions of his humbler days. On one 
occasion, when urged not to go, he replied, "Why, 
Aunt's heart would be broken if I should leave town 
without calling upon her" ; yet, he was obliged to walk 
several miles to make the call. 



A PATHETIC STORY OF LINCOLN'S DISAPPOINTMENT 

IN FAILING TO SECURE THE SUPPORT OF 

THE SPRINGFIELD MINISTERS. 

At the time of Lincoln's nomination, at Chicago, 
Mr. Newton Bateman, Superintendent of Public 
Instruction for the State of Illinois, occupied a room 
adjoining and opening into the Executive Chamber at 
Springfield. Frequently this door was open during 
Mr. Lincoln's receptions, and throughout the seven 
months or more of his occupation, he saw him nearly 
every day. Often, when Mr. Lincoln was tired, he 
closed the door against all intruders and called Mr. 
Bateman into his room for a quiet talk. On one of 
these occasions, Mr. Lincoln took up a book containing 
canvass of the city of Springfield, in which he lived, 
showing the candidate for whom each citizen had 
declared it his intention to vote in the approaching 
election. Mr. Lincoln's friends had, doubtless at his 



STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 101 

own request, placed the result of the canvass in his 
hands. This was towards the close of October, and 
only a few days before election. Calling Mr. Bateman 
to a seat by his side, having previously locked all the 
doors, he said: 

"Let us look over this book; I wish particularly to 
see how the ministers of Springfield are going to 
vote." 

The leaves were turned, one by one, and as the 
names were examined Mr. Lincoln frequently asked if 
this one and that one was not a minister, or an elder, or a 
member of such and such a church, and sadly expressed 
his surprise on receiving an affirmative answer. In 
that manner he went through the book, and then he 
closed it, and sat silently for some minutes regarding a 
memorandum in pencil which lay before him. At 
length he turned to Mr. Bateman, with a face full of 
sadness, and said : 

"Here are twenty-three ministers of different 
denominations, and all of them are against me but 
three, and here are a great many prominent members 
of churches, a very large majority are against me. Mr. 
Bateman, I am not a Christian, — God knows I would 
be one, — but I have carefully read the Bible, and I do 
not so understand this book," and he drew forth a 
pocket New Testament. "These men well know," he 
continued, "that I am for freedom in the Territories, 
freedom everywhere, as free as the Constitution and 
the laws will permit, and that my opponents are for 
slavery. They know this, and yet, with this book in 
their hands, in the light of which human bondage 
cannot live a moment, they are going to vote against 
me; I do not understand it at all." 



io2 STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 

Here Mr. Lincoln paused — paused for long minutes, 
his features surcharged with emotion. Then he rose 
and walked up and down the reception-room in the 
effort to retain or regain his self-possession. Stopping 
at last, he said, with a trembling voice and cheeks wet 
with tears : 

"I know there is a God, and that he hates injustice 
and slavery. I see the storm coming, and I know that 
His hand is in it. If He has a place and work for me, 
and I think He has, I believe I am ready. I am noth- 
ing, but Truth is everything. I know I am right, 
because I know that liberty is right, for Christ teaches 
it, and Christ is God. I have told them that a house 
divided against itself cannot stand; and Christ and 
Reason say the same ; and they will find it so. 

"Douglas don't care whether slavery is voted up or 
down, but God cares, and humanity cares, and I care ; 
and with God's help I shall not fail. I may not see 
the end; but it will come, and I shall be vindicated; 
and these men will find they have not read their Bible 
right." 

Much of this was uttered as if he were speaking to 
himself, and with a sad, earnest solemnity of manner 
impossible to be described. After a pause he re- 
sumed: 

"Doesn't it seem strange that men can ignore the 
moral aspect of this contest? No revelation could 
make it plainer to me that slavery or the Government 
must be destroyed. The future would be something 
awful, as I look at it, but for this rock on which I 
stand" (alluding to the Testament which he still held 
in his hand), "especially with the knowledge of how 
these ministers are going to vote. It seems as if God 



STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 103 

had borne with this thing (slavery) until the teachers 
of religion have come to defend it from the Bible, and 
to claim for it a divine character and sanction ; and 
now the cup of iniquity is full, and the vials of wrath 
will be poured out. ' ' 

Everything he said was of a peculiarly deep, tender, 
and religious tone, and all was tinged with a touching 
melancholy. He repeatedly referred to his conviction 
that the day of wrath was at hand, and that he was to 
be an actor in the terrible struggle which would issue 
in the overthrow of slavery, although he might not 
live to see the end. 

After further reference to a belief in the Divine 
Providence and the fact of God in history, the con- 
versation turned upon prayer. He freely stated his 
belief in the duty, privilege, and efficacy of prayer, 
and intimated, in no unmistakable terms, that he had 
sought in that way Divine guidance and favor. The 
effect of this conversation upon the mind of Mr. Bate- 
man, a Christian gentleman whom Mr. Lincoln pro- 
foundly respected, was to convince him that Mr. 
Lincoln had, in a quiet way, found a path to the 
Christian standpoint — that he had found God, and 
rested on the eternal truth of God. As the two men 
were about to separate, Mr. Bateman remarked : 

"I have not supposed that you were accustomed to 
think so much upon this class of subjects; certainly 
your friends generally are ignorant of the sentiments 
you have expressed to me." 

He replied quickly : "I know they are, but I think 
more on these subjects than upon all others, and I have 
done so for years; and I am willing you should know 
it." 



io 4 STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 

INCIDENTS OF LINCOLN'S HOME LIFE. 

A lady relative who lived for two years with the Lin- 
colns, told me that Mr. Lincoln was in the habit of 
lying on the floor with the back of a chair for a pillow 
when he read. 

One evening, when in this position in the hall, a 
knock was heard at the front door, and, although in his 
shirt sleeves, he answered the call. Two ladies were 
at the door, whom he invited into the parlor, notifying 
them in his open, familiar way, that he would "trot 
the women folks out." Mrs. Lincoln, from an adjoin- 
ing room, witnessed the ladies' entrance, and, over- 
hearing her husband's jocose expression, her indig- 
nation was so instantaneous she made the situation 
exceedingly interesting for him, and he was glad to 
retreat from the mansion. He did not return till very 
late at night, and then slipped quietly in at a rear 
door. 

"NOTHING TO WEAR." 

A lady reader or elocutionist came to Springfield in 
1857. A large crowd greeted her. Among other 
things she recited "Nothing to Wear," a piece in 
which is described the perplexities that beset "Miss 
Flora McFlimsey" in her efforts to appear fashionable. 

In the midst of one stanza in which no effort is 
made to say anything particularly amusing, and during 
the reading of which the audience manifested the most 
respectful silence and attention, some one in the rear 
scats burst out with a loud, coarse laugh, a sudden 
and explosive guffaw. It startled the speaker and 
audience, and kindled a storm of unsuppressed laughter 
and applause. Kverybody looked back to ascertain 



STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 107 

the cause of the demonstration, and were greatly sur- 
prised to find that it was Mr. Lincoln. 

He blushed and squirmed with the awkward diffi- 
dence of a schoolboy. What caused him to laugh, no 
one was able to explain. He was doubtless wrapped 
up in a brown study, and recalling some amusing epi- 
sode, indulged laughter without realizing his surround- 
ings. The experience mortified him greatly, 



DEFEATED BY A STILL-HUNT. 

Lincoln was a candidate of the Know Nothings for 
the State Legislature, the party was overconfident, the 
Democrats pursued a still-hunt. Lincoln was defeated. 
He compared the situation to one of the camp follow- 
ers of General Taylor's army who had secured a barrel 
of cider, erected a tent, and commenced dealing it out 
to the thirsty soldiers at twenty-five cents a drink, but 
he had sold but little before another sharp one set up a 
tent at his back, and tapped the barrel so as to flow on 
his side, and peddled out No. 1 cider at five cents a 
drink ! of course, getting the latter's trade entire on 
the borrowed capital. 

"The Democrats," said Mr. Lincoln, "had played 
Knownothing on a cheaper scale than had the real 
devotees of Sam, and had raked down his pile with his 
own cider!" 

HOW LINCOLN WON THE NOMINATION FOR 
CONGRESS. 

Old-time politicians, says a correspondent, will 
readily recall the heated political campaign of 1843, in 
the neighboring State of Illinois. 



108 STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 

The chief interest of the campaign lay in the race 
for Congress in the Capital district, which was between 
Hardin — fiery, eloquent, and impetuous Democrat — 
and Lincoln — plain, practical, and ennobled Whig. 
The world knows the result. Lincoln was elected. 

It is not so much his election as the manner 
in which he secured his nomination with which we 
have to deal. Before that ever-memorable spring, Lin- 
coln vacillated between the courts of Springfield, rated 
as a plain, honest, logical Whig, with no ambition 
higher politically than to occupy some good home 
office. Late in the fall of 1842 his name began to be 
mentioned in connection with Congressional aspira- 
tions, which fact greatly annoyed the leaders of his 
political party, who had already selected as the Whig 
candidate one Baker, afterward the gallant Colonel who 
fell so bravely and died such an honorable death on the 
battlefield of Ball's Bluff in 1862. Despite all efforts 
of his opponents within his party, the name of the 
"gaunt rail-splitter" was hailed with acclaim by the 
masses, to whom he had endeared himself by his witti- 
cisms, honest tongue, and quaint philosophy when on 
the stump, or mingling with them in their homes. 

The convention, which met in early spring, in the 
city of Springfield, was to be composed of the usual 
number of delegates. The contest for the nomination 
was Spirited and exciting. 

A few weeks before the meeting of the convention 
the fact was found by the leaders that the advantage 
lay with Lincoln, and that unless they pulled some 
very fine wires nothing conld save Baker. 

They attempted to play the game that has so often 
won, by "convincing" delegates under instructions for 



STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 109 

Lincoln, to violate them, and vote for Baker. They had 
apparently succeeded. 

"The plans of mice and men aft gang aglee. " So it 
was in this case. Two days before the convention, 
Lincoln received an intimation of this, and, late at 
night, indited the following letter. 

The letter was addressed to Martin Morris, who 
resides at Petersburg, an intimate friend of his, and by 
him circulated among those who were instructed for 
him at the county convention. 

It had the desired effect. The convention met, the 
scheme of the conspirators miscarried, Lincoln was 
nominated, made a vigorous canvass, and was triumph- 
antly elected, thus paving the way for his more 
extended and brilliant conquests. 

This letter, Lincoln had often told his friends, gave 
him ultimately the Chief Magistracy of the nation. 
He has also said, that, had he been beaten before the 
convention he would have been forever obscured. 
The following is a verbatim copy of the epistle : 

"April 14, 1843- 
"Friend Morris: I have heard it intimated that 
Baker is trying to get you or Miles, or both of you, to 
violate the instructions of the meeting that appointed 
you, and to go for him. I have insisted, and still 
insist, that this cannot be true. 

"Sure Baker would not do the like. As well might 
Hardin ask me to vote for him in the convention. 

"Again, it is said there will be an attempt to get 
instructions in your county requiring you to go for 
Baker. This is all wrong. Upon the same rule, why 
might I not fly from the decision against me at Sanga- 



no STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 

mon and get up instructions to their delegates to go for 
me. There are at least 1,200 Whigs in the county that 
took no part, and yet I would as soon stick my head in 
the fire as attempt it. 

"Besides, if any one should get the nomination by 
such extraordinary means, all harmony in the district 
would inevitably be lost. Honest Whigs (and very 
nearly all of them are honest) would not quietly abide 
such enormities. 

"I repeat, such an attempt on Baker's part cannot 
be true. Write me at Springfield how the matter is. 

Don't show or speak of this letter. 

"A. Lincoln." 

Mr. Morris did show the letter, and Mr. Lincoln 
always thanked his stars that he did. 



"HOLD ON, BREESE!" 

Judge Brcese, of the Supreme bench, — one of the 
most distinguished of American jurists, and a man of 
great personal dignity, — was about to open court at 
Springfield, when Lincoln called out in his hearty way, 
"Hold on, Brcese! Don't open court yet! Here's 
Bob Blackwell just going to tell a story!" The Judge 
passed on without replying, evidently regarding it as 
beneath the dignity of the Supreme Court to delay 
proceedings for the sake of a story. 



COLONEL BAKER DEPENDED BY LINCOLN. 

On one occasion, Colonel Baker was speaking in a 
courthouse, which had been a storehouse, and, on 



STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 113 

making some remarks that were offensive to certain 
political rowdies in the crowd, they cried : ' ' Take him 
off the stand!" Immediate confusion ensued, and 
there was an attempt to carry the demand into execu- 
tion. Directly over the speaker's head was an old 
scuttle, at which it appeared Mr. Lincoln had been 
listening to the speech. In an instant, Mr. Lincoln's 
feet came through the scuttle, followed by his tall and 
sinewy frame, and he was standing by Colonel Baker's 
side. He raised his hand, and the assembly subsided 
into silence. 

"Gentlemen," said Mr. Lincoln, "let us not disgrace 
the age and country in which we live. This is a land 
where freedom of speech is guaranteed. Mr. Baker 
has a right to speak, and ought to be permitted to do 
so. I am here to protect him, and no man shall take 
him from this stand if I can prevent it." 

The suddenness of his appearance, his perfect calm- 
ness and fairness, and the knowledge that he would do 
what he had promised to do, quieted all disturbance, 
and the speaker concluded his remarks without 
difficulty. 



"WHOLE HOG JACKSON MAN." 

When Lincoln was working for the nomination for 
the Legislature the second time, he was on a certain 
occasion pitted against one George Forquer, who 
had been a leading Whig, but was now a "Whole 
Hog Jackson Man," and his reward was a good 
office. 

Forquer devoted himself to taking down the young 



ii 4 STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 

man from New Salem. He ridiculed his dress, man- 
ners and rough personal appearance, and with much 
pomposity derided him as an uncouth youngster. Lin- 
coln had noticed, on coming into Springfield, Forquer's 
fine house, on which was a lightning rod, then a great 
novelty in those parts. Lincoln, on rising to reply, 
stood for a moment with flashing eyes, and pale 
cheeks, betraying his inward but unspoken wrath. He 
began by discussing very briefly this ungenerous 
attack. He said: "I am not so young in years as I am 
in the tricks of the trade of the politician; but, live 
long, or die young, I would rather die now, than, like 
that gentleman, change my politics, and with the 
change receive an office worth three thousand dollars 
a year, and then feel obliged to erect a lightning rod 
over my house to protect my guilty conscience from an 
offended God." 

The effect upon the simple audience, gathered there 
in the open air, was electrical. 

At another time, Lincoln replied to Col. Richard 
Taylor, a self-conceited, dandified man who wore a 
gold chain and ruffled shirt. His party at that time 
were posing as the hardworking, bone and sinew of the 
land, while the Whigs were stigmatized as aristocrats, 
ruffled-shirt gentry. Taylor making a sweeping 
gesture, his overcoat became torn open, displaying his 
finery. Lincoln in reply said, laying his hand on his 
jeans-clad breast: "Here is your aristocrat, one of 
your silk-stocking gentry, at your service." Then, 
spreading out his hands, bronzed and gaunt with toil: 
"Here is your rag-basin with lily-white hands. Yes, 
I suppose, according to my friend Taylor, I am a 
bloated aristocrat," 



STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 115 

HARK FROM THE TOMBS. 

"Fellow-citizens: My friend, Mr. Douglas, made the 
startling announcement to-day that the Whigs are all 
dead. 

"If that be so, fellow citizens, you will now experi- 
ence the novelty of hearing a speech from a dead man ; 
and I suppose you might properly say, in the language 
of the old hymn : 

" 'Hark! from the tombs a doleful sound.' " 



TRUSTED TILL THE "BRITCHEN" BROKE. 

In the campaign of 1852, Lincoln, in reply to 
Douglas' speech, wherein he speaks of confidence in 
Providence, replied: "Let us stand by our candidate 
(General Scott) as faithfully as he has always stood by 
our country, and I much doubt if we do not perceive a 
slight abatement of Judge Douglas's confidence in 
Providence as well as the people. I suspect that con- 
fidence is not more firmly fixed with the Judge than it 
was with the old woman whose horse ran away with 
her in a buggy. She said she 'trusted in Providence 
till the britchen broke,' and then she 'didn't know 
what in airth to do. ' 

"The chance is, the Judge will see the britchen 
broke, and then he can, at his leisure, bewail the fate 
of Locofocism as the victim of misplaced confidence." 



CROCODILE AND NEGRO. 



Douglas made use in one of his brief tours of the 
Mowing figure of spwQh; "A* feetweea the QroQodile 



n6 STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 

and the negro, I take the side of the negro; but as 
between the negro and the white man — I would go for 
the white man every time." Lincoln, at home, noted 
that; and afterwards, when he had occasion to refer 
to the remark, he said: "I believe that this is a sort of 
proposition in proportion, which may be stated thus: 
"As the negro is to the white man, so is the crocodile 
to the negro; and as the negro may rightfully treat the 
crocodile as a beast or reptile, so the white man may 
rightfully treat the negro as a beast or reptile." 



LINCOLN'S LAST INTERVIEW WITH DOUGLAS. 

"One day Douglas came rushing in," he related, 
"and said he had just got a telegraph dispatch from 
some friends in Illinois urging him to come out and 
help set things right in Egypt, and that he would go, 
or stay in Washington, just where I thought he could 
do the most good. 

"I told him to do as he chose, but that probably he 
could do best in Illinois. Upon that he shook hands 
with me, and hurried away to catch the next train. 
I never saw him again." 



PEN PICTURE OF LINCOLN, AND HIS SPEECH IN 
NEW YORK CITY. 

"When Lincoln rose to speak, I was greatly disap- 
pointed. He was tall, tall, oh, so tall, and so angular 
and awkward that I had for an instant a feeling of pity 
for BO ungainly a man He began in a low tone of 
voice, as if he were used to speaking out of doors, and 
was afraid of speaking too loud. 



STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 119 

"He said 'Mr. Cheerman,' instead of 'Mr. Chair- 
man, ' and employed many other words with an old- 
fashioned pronunciation. I said to myself, 'Old 
fellow, you won't do; it is all very well for the Wild 
West, but this will never go down in New York. ' But 
pretty soon he began to get into the subject; he 
straightened up, made regular and graceful gestures ; 
his face lighted as with an inward fire ; the whole man 
was transfigured. I forgot the clothing, his personal 
appearance, and his individual peculiarities. Pres- 
ently, forgetting myself, I was on my feet with the 
rest, yelling like a wild Indian, cheering the wonder- 
ful man. In the close parts of his argument, you 
could hear the gentle sizzling of the gas burners. 

"When he reached a climax, the thunders of applause 
were terrific. It was a great speech. When I came 
out of the hall my face was glowing with excitement 
and my frame all a-quiver. A friend, with his eyes 
aglow, asked me what I thought of Abe Lincoln, the 
rail-splitter. I said, 'He's the greatest man since St. 
Paul. ' And I think so yet." 



REMARKS UTTERED BY LINCOLN, 1858. 
"Though I now sink out of view, I believe I have 
made some mark which will tell for the cause of liberty 
long after I am gone. ' ' 



TRENT AFFAIR. 
Through Minister Adams he said to angry England : 
"It is unnecessary to remind your lordship that this 
means war. ' ' 



i2o STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 

SLAVERY. 

He said of slavery in '55: "I bite my lips and keep 
quiet." A while later, in indignation: "Gentlemen, 
I'll make the ground of this country too hot for the feet 
of slaves." 



"THE HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF." 

Lincoln read the speech, containing the above, to 
many of his friends, before he delivered it in the con- 
test for the United States Senate against Douglas. 
Some condemned, some indorsed, characterized it as 
"fool utterances, ahead of its time"; another said, 
"Lincoln, deliver that speech as read, and it will make 
you President." Lincoln answered all their objec- 
tions, substantially as follows: "Friends, this thing has 
been retarded long enough. The time has come when 
these sentiments should be uttered; and if it is decreed 
that I should go down because of this speech, then let 
me go down linked to the truth — let me die in the 
advocacy of what is just and right." 

To one complainant who followed into his office he 
said proudly: "If I had to draw a pen across my 
record, and erase my whole life from sight, and I had 
one poor gift or choice left as to what I should save 
from the wreck, I should choose that speech and leave 
it to the world unerased. " This was Lincoln's position 
in the Lincoln-Douglas debate. His opening speech 
at Springfield contained this memorable sentence. In 
a letter to a friend, August 22, 1858, Lincoln said: 
"Douglas and I, for the first time during this canvass, 
Crossed swords hero yesterday. The fire flew some, 
and I am glad to know I am yet alive." 







CAMPAIGN CLUB. 





For President, 
OFILLIWOIS. 



H.HAMtTUJ 



OF MAINE. 



CAMPAIGN BADGES OF i860 




STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 123 

FIRST ECHOES FROM CHICAGO CONVENTION. 

Mr. Volk, the artist, relates that, being in Spring- 
field when the nomination was announced, he called 
upon Mr. Lincoln, whom he found looking radiant. 
"I exclaimed, 'I am the first man from Chicago, I 
believe, who has had the honor of congratulating you 
on your nomination for President.' Then those two 
great hands took both of mine with a grasp never to 
be forgotten, and while shaking, I said, 'Now that 
you will doubtless be the next President of the United 
States, I want to make a statue of you, and shall try my 
best to do you justice. ' 

"Said he, 'I don't doubt it, for I have come to the 
conclusion that you are an honest man, ' and with that 
greeting, I thought my hands in a fair way of being 
crushed. 

"On the Sunday following, by agreement, I called 
to make a cast of Mr. Lincoln's hands. I asked him 
to hold something in his hands, and told him a stick 
would do. Thereupon he went to the woodshed, and 
I heard the saw go, and he soon returned to the dining- 
room, whittling off the end of a piece of broom handle. 
I remarked to him that he need not whittle off the 
edges. 'Oh, well,' said he, 'I thought I would like to 
have it nice. ' ' ' 



MR. LINCOLN'S VISION. 

Mr. Lincoln, after hearing of his nomination at Chi- 
cago for the Presidency, returned home, and, feeling 
somewhat weary, went upstairs to his wife's sitting- 
room, and lay down upon a couch in the room directly 
opposite a bureau, upon which was a looking-glass. 



i2 4 STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 

"As I reclined," said he, "my eye fell upon the glass, 
and I saw distinctly two images of myself, exactly 
alike, except that one was a little paler than the other. 
I arose and lay down again with the same result. It 
made me quite uncomfortable for a few minutes, but, 
some friends coming in, the matter passed out of my 
mind. The next day, while walking in the street, 
I was suddenly reminded of the circumstance, and the 
disagreeable sensation produced by it returned. I had 
never seen anything of the kind before, and did not 
know what to make of it. I determined to go home 
and place myself in the same position, and, if the same 
effect was produced, I would make up my mind that it 
was the natural result of some principle of refraction 
or optics, which I did not understand, and dismiss it. 
I tried the experiment, with the same result; and, as I 
had said to myself, accounted for it on some principle 
unknown to me, and it then ceased to trouble me. 
But the God who works through the laws of Nature, 
might surely give a sign to me, if one of His chosen 
servants, even through the operation of a principle in 
optics." 

Mr. Lincoln remarked to Mr. Noah Brookes, one of 
his most intimate personal friends: "I should be the 
most presumptuous blockhead upon this footstool if I 
for one day thought that I could discharge the duties 
which have come upon me, since I came to this place, 
without the aid and enlightenment of One who is 
stronger and wiser than all others." He said on 
another occasion: "I am very sure that if I do not go 
away from here a wiser man, I shall go away a better 
man, from having learned here what a very poor sort 
of a man I am." 



STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 125 
"ADAM'S ALE," LINCOLN'S ONLY BEVERAGE. 

Immediately after Mr. Lincoln's nomination for 
President at the Chicago Convention, a committee, of 
which Governor Morgan, of New York, was Chairman, 
visited him in Springfield, 111., where he was officially 
informed of his nomination. 

After this ceremony had passed, Mr. Lincoln 
remarked to the company that as an appropriate con- 
clusion to an interview so important and interesting as 
that which had just transpired, he supposed good man- 
ners would require that he should treat the committee 
with something to drink ; and opening the door that 
led into the rear, he called out, "Mary! Mary!" A 
girl responded to the call, to whom Mr. Lincoln spoke 
a few words in an undertone, and, closing the door, 
returned again and conversed with his guests. In a 
few minutes the maiden entered, bearing a large 
waiter, containing several glass tumblers, and a large 
pitcher in the midst, and placed it upon the center- 
table. Mr. Lincoln arose, and gravely addressing 
the company, said: "Gentlemen, we must pledge 
our mutual health in the most healthy beverage 
that God has given to man — it is the only bever- 
age I have ever used or allowed my family to use, 
and I cannot conscientiously depart from it on the 
present occasion. It is pure Adam's ale from the 
spring;" and, taking the tumbler, he touched it to 
his lips, and pledged them his highest respects in a 
cup of cold water. Of course, all his guests were 
constrained to admire his consistency, and to join in 
his example. 



i26 STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 

STANTON'S FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF LINCOLN. 

He made no secret of his disgust of that "long, lank 
creature from Illinois," and declared if "that giraffe" 
was permitted to appear in the case he would throw 
up his brief and leave it. 

Mr. Lincoln keenly felt the affront, but recognizing 
Stanton's ability beneath his brusque exterior, he 
afterwards, for the public good, appointed him to a 
seat in his Cabinet. 



TWO ENTERTAINING ANECDOTES ILLUSTRATING 
LINCOLN'S GOOD NATURE. 

Soon after Mr. Lincoln's nomination for the Presi- 
dency, the Executive Chamber, a large, fine room in 
the State House at Springfield, was set apart for him, 
where he met the public until after his election. 

As illustrative of the nature of many of his calls, the 
following brace of incidents were related to Mr. Hol- 
land by an eye-witness: "Mr. Lincoln being in con- 
versation with a gentleman one day, two raw, 
plainly-dressed young 'Suckers' entered the room, and 
bashfully lingered near the door. As soon as he 
observed them, and apprehended their embarrassment, 
he rose and walked to them, saying: 'How do you do, 
my good fellows? What can I do for you? Will you 
sit down 5 ' The spokesman of the pair, the shorter of 
the two, declined to sit, and explained the object of the 
call thus: He had had a talk about the relative height 
of Mr. Lincoln and his companion, and had asserted 
his belief that they were of exactly the same height. 
He had come in to verify his judgment, Mr. Lincoln 



STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 127 

smiled, went and got his cane, and, placing the end of 
it upon the wall, said: 

" 'Here, young man, come under here. 

"The young man came under the cane as Mr. Lin- 
coln held it, and when it was perfectly adjusted to his 
height, Mr. Lincoln said : 

" 'Now, come out, and hold the cane.' 

"This he did, while Mr. Lincoln stood under. 
Rubbing his head back and forth to see that it worked 
easily under the measurement, he stepped out, and 
declared to the sagacious fellow who was curiously 
looking on, that he had guessed with remarkable 
accuracy — that he and the young man were exactly the 
same height. Then he shook hands with them and sent 
them on their way. Mr. Lincoln would just as soon 
have thought of cutting off his right hand as he would 
have thought of turning those boys away with the im- 
pression that they had in any way insulted his dignity. 

"They had hardly disappeared when an old and 
modestly dressed woman made her appearance. She 
knew Mr. Lincoln, but Mr. Lincoln did not at first 
recognize her. Then she undertook to recall to his 
memory certain incidents connected with his ride upon 
the circuit — especially his dining at her house upon 
the road at different times. Then he remembered her 
and her home. Having fixed her own place in his 
recollection, she tried to recall to him a certain scanty 
dinner of bread and milk that he once ate at her house. 
He could not remember it — on the contrary, he only 
remembered that he had always fared well at her house. 

'■ 'Well,' said she, 'one day you came along after we 
had got through dinner, and we had eaten up every- 
thing, and I could, give you nothing but a bowl of. 



ia8 STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 

bread and milk, and you ate it; and when you got up 
you said it was good enough for the President of the 
United States!' 

"The good woman had come in from the country, 
making a journey of eight or ten miles, to relate to 
Mr. Lincoln this incident, which, in her mind, had 
doubtless taken the form of a prophecy. Mr. Lincoln 
placed the honest creature at her ease, chatted with 
her of old times, and dismissed her in the most happy 
and complacent frame of mind." 



"I AM NOT FIT FOR THE PRESIDENCY." 

The opening of the year i860 found Mr. Lincoln's 
name freely mentioned in connection with the Repub- 
lican nomination for the Presidency. To be classed 
with Seward, Chase, McLean, and other celebrities was 
enough to stimulate any Illinois lawyer's pride; but in 
Mr. Lincoln's case, if it had any such effect, he was 
most artful in concealing it. Now and then, some 
ardent friend, an editor, for example, would run his 
name up to the masthead, but in all cases he discour- 
aged the attempt. 

"In regard to the matter you spoke of," he answered 
one man who proposed his name, "I beg you will not 
give it a further mention. Seriously, I do not think 
I am fit for the Presidency." 



SIX FOOT THREE COMMITTEE MAN. 

Tall Judge Kelly, of Pennsylvania, who was one of 
the committee to inform Mr. Lincoln of his nomina- 



STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 129 

tion at the Chicago Convention, had been eyeing Mr. 
Lincoln's lofty form with a mixture of admiration, and 
very likely jealousy. This had not escaped Mr. Lin- 
coln, and as he shook hands with the Judge he 
inquired: "What is your height?" "Six feet three; 
what is yours, Mr. Lincoln?" "Six feet four." 
"Then," said the Judge, "Pennsylvania bows to Illi- 
nois. My dear sir, for years my heart has been aching 
for a President that I could look up to, and I've found 
him at last in the land where we thought there were 
none but little giants." 



A VISIT TO THE "FIVE POINTS HOUSE OF IN- 
DUSTRY" IN NEW YORK. 

When Mr. Lincoln visited New York in i860, he felt 
a great interest in many of the institutions for reform- 
ing criminals and saving the young from a life of 
crime. Among others, he visited, unattended, the 
Five Points House of Industry, and the superinten- 
dent of the Sabbath school there gave the following 
account of the event : 

"One Sunday morning I saw a tall, remarkable- 
looking man enter the room and take a seat among us. 
He listened with fixed attention to our exercises, and 
his countenance expressed such genuine interest that 
I approached him and suggested that he might be 
willing to say something to the children. He accepted 
the invitation with evident pleasure, and coming for- 
ward began a simple address, which at once fascinated 
every little hearer and hushed the room into silence. 



i 3 o STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 

His language was strikingly beautiful, and his tones 
musical with intense feeling. The little faces would 
droop into sad conviction when he uttered sentences of 
warning, and would brighten into sunshine as he 
spoke cheerful words of promise. Once or twice he 
attempted to close his remarks, but the imperative 
shout of, 'Go on! Oh, do go on!' would compel him 
to resume. 

"As I looked upon the gaunt and sinewy frame of 
the stranger, and marked his powerful head and 
determined features, now touched into softness by the 
impressions of the moment, I felt an irrepressible 
curiosity to learn something more about him, and while 
he was quietly leaving the room, I begged to know 
his name. He courteously replied: 'It is Abraham 
Lincoln, from Illinois.' " 



THE UGLIEST MAN. 

Mr. Lincoln enjoyed a joke at his own expense. 
Said he: "In the days when I used to be in the circuit, 
I was accosted in the cars by a stranger, who said, 
' Excuse me, sir, but I have an article in my possession 
which belongs to you.' 'How is that?' I asked, con- 
siderably astonished. 

"The stranger took a jackknife from his pocket. 
'This knife,' said he, 'was placed in my hands some 
years ago, with the injunction that I was to keep it 
until I had found a man uglier than myself. I have 
carried it from that time to this. Allow me to say, 
sir, that I think you are fairly entitled to the prop- 
erty. ' " 



SPRINGFIELD ILLINOIS 

[Frcothe Daily Journal of the 9th.] 




A Political Earthquake] 

THE PRAIRIES ON FIRE 
FOR LINCOLN! 



THE BIGGEST DEMONSTRATION EVER 
HELD IN THE WEST! 



75,000 REPUBLICANS IN COUNCIL f 



IMMENSE PROCESSION! 



Speaking from Five Stands by Trumbull, 

Poolittle, Kellogg, Palmer, Browning, 

Gillespie, etc., etc* 



HAGNmCENT TORCHLIGHT PROCEfiSION AT NIG ST. 



MEETINGS AT THE WWW AM AND TBBJtEfr 
BBSBNTATIVES If ALL. 



STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 133 

THE OLD SIGN, "LINCOLN AND HERNDON." 

Enduring friendship and love of old associations 
were' prominent characteristics of President Lincoln. 
When about to leave for Washington, he went to the 
dingy little law office which had sheltered his saddest 
hours. He sat down on the couch, and said to his law 
partner, Herndon, "Billy, you and I have been 
together for more than twenty years, and have never 
passed a word. Will you let my name stay on the old 
sign until I come back from Washington?" The tears 
started to Mr. Herndon's eyes. He put out his hand. 
"Mr. Lincoln," said he, "I never will have any other 
partner while you live" ; and to the day of assassina- 
tion, all the doings of the firm were in the name of 
4 ' Lincoln & Herndon. ' ' 



"HONEST OLD ABE." 

"An old man hailing from Mississippi, dressed in 
plain homespun, came to our city Saturday. He 
mingled freely with the Republican Representatives, 
got their news, and seemed to think we are not quite 
so black as we are represented. 

"He called on Mr. Lincoln, talked freely with him, 
and heard the President-elect express his sentiments 
and intentions. He learned that Mr. Lincoln enter- 
tained none but the kindest feelings towards the people 
of the South, and that he would protect the South in 
her just rights. 

"He had a long conversation, and went away 
delighted. He left the office of Mr. Lincoln in com- 
pany with a friend, who communicated this to us, and 



i34 STORIES OF LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. 

when outside the door he remarked, while the tears 
stole down his furrowed cheeks: 'Oh! if the people of 
the South could hear what I have heard, they would 
love and not hate Mr. Lincoln. I will tell my friends 
at home; but,' he added sorrowfully, 'they will not 
believe me. ' He said that he did wish that every man 
in the South could be personally acquainted with Mr. 
Lincoln. ' ' 



Incidents from the x residential 
dareer of Lincoln. 



THE INAUGURATION— MARCH 4, 1861. 

The procession set out from the Executive Mansion. 
President Buchanan there entered the carriage, which, 
drawn by four horses, and preceded by the Mar- 
shal of the District, with his aids, on horseback, 
moved out of the grounds to the avenue. 

In front of Willard's Hotel a halt was made. Mr. 
Lincoln walked out through the crowd, which civilly 
opened a lane to permit him to pass, and entered the 
carriage. 

Upon arrival at the Capitol building the party pro- 
ceeded at once to the platform, when Senator Baker, of 
Oregon, spoke with his silvery voice the simple words, 
"Fellow citizens, I introduce to you Abraham Lincoln, 
the President-elect of the United States of America." 

The Rail-splitter, as he was popularly known, held 
the vast multitude spellbound. The sentiments of 
the President-elect could not be mistaken : "The Union 
must be, should be, preserved. " "I hold that in the 

135 



136 PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. 

contemplation of universal law, and of the Constitu- 
tion, the Union of the United States is perpetual!" 
"I shall take care, as the Constitution expressly enjoins 
upon me, that the laws of the Union shall be faithfully 
executed in all the States!" 

"The power confided to me will be used to hold, 
occupy, and possess the property and places belonging 
to the Government." 

"I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but 
friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion 
may have strained, it must not break our bonds of 
affection." 

Lincoln controlled the audience at his will, and clos- 
ing with these memorable words, he prepared to take 
the oath of office : 

"The mystic chords of memory, stretching from 
every battle-field and patriotic grave to every living 
heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will 
yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, 
as surely they will be." 

The Chief Justice of the United States now came 
forward. His venerable appearance gave, to what 
might have been a mere matter of form, great dignity 
and impressed significance. 

He extended an open Bible, upon which Mr. Lincoln 
laid his left hand, and uplifting his right arm, he 
slowly repeated after the Chief Justice the words of 
the Constitution: "I do solemnly swear that I will 
faithfully execute the office of President <>t" the United 
States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, 
protect, and defend the Constitution of the United 
States. So help me ( rod !" 

The ceremony ended. Then those upon the plat- 



PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. 139 

form rose and remained standing as the President and 
his party passed back into the building. 

The procession reformed in the same order as 
before, and returned, leaving at the White House as 
President of the United States the private citizen it 
had escorted from the hotel. Within an hour, another 
carriage, in which there was a single occupant, was 
driven down the avenue to the only railroad station 
then in Washington. 

It contained Ex- President Buchanan, returning as a 
private citizen to his Pennsylvania home. 



"I'LL TRY TO STEER HER THROUGH." 

Gen. John A. Logan and Mr. Lovejoy, of Illinois, 
called upon Mr. Lincoln at Willard's Hotel, Wash- 
ington, February 23, the morning of his arrival, and 
urged a vigorous, firm policy. 

Patiently listening, the President replied seriously 
but cheerfully, "As the country has placed me at the 
helm of the ship, I'll try to steer her through." 



ONE CONCEPTION OF THE NEW PRESIDENT. 

Soon after Mr. Lincoln began his Administration, a 
distinguished South Carolina lady, the widow of a 
Northern scholar, called upon him out of curiosity. 

She was very proud and aristocratic, and was anxious 
to see this monstrosity, as he had been represented. 
Upon being presented she hissed in the President's 
ear: "I am a South Carolinian." The President, 



140 PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. 

taking in the situation, was at once courteous and dig- 
nified. 

After a pleasant conversation, she said: "Why, Mr. 
Lincoln, you look, act, and speak like a kind, good- 
hearted, generous man." "And did you expect to 
meet a savage?" said he. "Certainly I did, or even 
something worse. I am glad I have met you, and 
now the best way to preserve peace is for you to go to 
Charleston, and show the people what you are, and tell 
the people you have no intention of injuring them." 
The lady attended the first levee after the inauguration. 



LINCOLN'S UNCONVENTIONALITY IN RECEIVING 
OLD FRIENDS AT THE WHITE HOUSE. 

Mr. Lincoln's habits at the White House were as 
simple as they were at his old home in Illinois. He 
never alluded to himself as "President," or as occu- 
pying "the Presidency." His office he always desig- 
nated as "the place." "Call me Lincoln," said he to a 
friend; "Mr. President" had become so very tiresome 
to him. "If you see a newsboy down the street, send 
him up this way," said he to a passenger, as he stood 
waiting for the morning news at his gate. Friends 
cautioned him about exposing himself so openly in the 
midst of enemies; but he never heeded them. He 
frequently walked the streets at night, entirely unpro- 
tected; and felt any check upon his movements a great 
annoyance. He delighted to see his familiar Western 
friends; and he gave them always a cordial welcome. 
He met them on the old footing, and fell at once into 
the accustomed habits of talk and story-telling. 



PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. 141 

An old acquaintance, with his wife, visited Washing- 
ton. Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln proposed to these friends 
a ride in the Presidential carriage. It should be stated 
in advance that the two men had probably never seen 
each other with gloves on in their lives, unless when 
they were used as protection from the cold. 

The question of each — Mr. Lincoln at the White 
House, and his friend at the hotel — was, whether he 
should wear gloves. Of course the ladies urged 
gloves; but Mr. Lincoln only put his in his pocket, to 
be used or not, according to the circumstances. 

When the Presidential party arrived at the hotel, to 
take in their friends, they found the gentleman, over- 
come by his wife's persuasions, very handsomely 
gloved. The moment he took his seat he began to 
draw off the clinging kids, while Mr. Lincoln began to 
draw his on! 

"No! no! no!" protested his friend, tugging at his 
gloves. "It is none of my doings ; put up your gloves, 
Mr. Lincoln." 

So the two old friends were on even and easy terms, 
and had their ride after their old fashion. 



REMARKABLE MEMORY OF LINCOLN. 

Mr. Lincoln's memory was very remarkable. At 
one of the afternoon receptions at the White House a 
stranger shook hands with him, and, as he did so, 
remarked casually, that he was elected to Congress 
about the time Mr. Lincoln's term as representative 
expired, which happened many years before. 

"Yes," said the President, "you are from " 



i 4 2 PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. 

(mentioning the State). "I remember reading of your 
election in a newspaper one morning on a steamboat 
going down to Mount Vernon." 

At another time a gentleman addressed him, saying, 
"I presume, Mr. President, you have forgotten me?" 

"No," was the prompt reply; "your name is Flood. 

I saw you last, twelve years ago, at " (naming the 

place and the occasion). "I am glad to see," he con- 
tinued, "that the Flood goes on." 

Subsequent to his re-election a deputation of bankers 
from various sections were introduced one day by the 
Secretary of the Treasury. After a few moments of 
general conversation, Mr. Lincoln turned to one of 
them and said: "Your district did not give me so 
strong a vote at the last election as it did in i860. " 

"I think, sir, that you must be mistaken," replied 
the banker. "I have the impression that your 
majority was considerably increased at the last elec- 
tion." 

"No," rejoined the President, "you fell off about six 
hundred votes." Then taking down from the book- 
case the official canvass of 1S60 and 1864, he referred 
to the vote of the district named, and proved to be 
quite right in his assertion. 



GENERAL FISK'S STORY OF THE "SWEARING 
DRIVER." 

General Fisk, attending the reception at the White 
House on one occasion, saw, waiting in the ante-room, 
a poor old man from Tennessee. Sitting down beside 
him, he inquired his errand, and learned that he had 



PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. 143 

been waiting three or four days to get an audience, and 
that on his seeing Mr. Lincoln probably depended the 
life of his son, who was under the sentence of death 
for some military offense. 

General Fisk wrote his case in outline on a card, and 
sent it in, with a special request that the President 
would see the man. In a moment the order came; 
and past senators, governors, and generals, waiting 
impatiently, the old man went into the President's 
presence. 

He showed Mr. Lincoln his papers, and he, on taking 
them, said he would look into the case and give him 
the result on the following day. 

The old man, in an agony of apprehension, looked 
up into the President's sympathetic face, and actually 
cried out: 

"To-morrow may be too late! My son is under sen- 
tence of death! The decision ought to be made now!" 
and the streaming tears told how much he was moved. 

"Come," said Mr. Lincoln, "wait a bit, and I'll tell 
you a story. ' ' And then he told the old man General 
Fisk's story about the swearing driver, as follows: 

The General had begun his military life as a colonel, 
and, when he raised his regiment in Missouri, he pro- 
posed to his men that he should do all the swearing of 
the regiment. They assented; and for months no 
instance was known of the violation of the promise. 
The Colonel had a teamster named John Todd, who, as 
roads were not always best, had some difficulty in 
commanding his temper and his tongue. John hap- 
pened to be driving a mule team through a series of 
mud-holes a little worse than usual, when, unable to 
restrain himself any longer, he burst forth into a vol- 



i 4 4 PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. 

ley of energetic oaths. The Colonel took notice of the 
offense, and brought John to an account. 

"John," said he, "didn't you promise to let me do 
all the swearing of the regiment?" 

"Yes, I did, Colonel," he replied, "but the fact 
was, the swearing had to be done then, or not at all, 
and you weren't there to do it." 

As he told the story, the old man forgot his boy, and 
both the President and his listener had a hearty laugh 
together at its conclusion. Then he wrote a few words 
which the old man read, and in which he found new 
occasion for tears; but the tears were tears of joy, for 
the words saved the life of his son. 



THE PRESIDENT'S MIND WANDERED. 

An amusing, yet touching, instance of the Presi- 
dent's preoccupation of mind occurred at one of his 
levees when he was shaking hands with a host of visit- 
ors passing him in a continuous stream. An intimate 
acquaintance received the usual conventional hand- 
shake and salutation, but perceiving that he was not 
recognized, kept his ground instead of moving on, and 
spoke again ; when the President, roused to a dim con- 
sciousness that something unusual had happened, per- 
ceived who stood before him, and, seizing his friend's 
hand, shook it again heartily, saying: 

" How do you do? How do you do? Excuse me for 
not noticing you. I was thinking of a man down 
South. " 

He afterwards privately acknowledged that the 
"man down South" was Sherman, then on his march 
to the sea. 




LINCOLN RECEIVING DENNIS HANKS. 



PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. 147 

HEARTY WELCOME OF DENNIS HANKS AT THE 
WHITE HOUSE. 

Dennis Hanks was once asked to visit Washington to 
secure the pardon of certain persons in jail for partici- 
pation in copperheadism. Dennis went and arrived in 
Washington, and instead of going, as he said, to a 
"tavern," he went to the White House. There was a 
porter on guard, and he asked : 

"Is Abe in?" 

"Do you mean Mr. Lincoln?" asked the porter. 

"Yes; is he in there?" and brushing the porter aside 
he strode into the room and said, "Hello, Abe; how 
are you?" 

And Abe said, "Well!" and just gathered him up in 
his arms and talked of the days gone by. 

Oh, the days gone by! They talked of their boy- 
hood days, and by and by Lincoln said: 

"What brings you here all the way from Illinois?" 

And then Dennis told him his mission, and Lincoln 
replied: 

"I will grant it, Dennis, for old-times' sake. I will 
send for Mr. Stanton. It is his business. " 

Stanton came into the room, and strolled up and 
down, and said that the men ought to be punished 
more than they were. Mr. Lincoln sat quietly in his 
chair and waited for the tempest to subside, and then 
quietly said to Stanton he would like to have the 
papers next day. 

When he had gone Dennis said : 

"Abe, if I was as big and as ugly as you are, I 
would take him over my knee and spank him. " 

Lincoln replied : "No, Stanton is an able and valu- 



i 4 8 PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. 

able man for this nation, and I am glad to bear his 
anger for the service he can give this nation." 



THE INTERVIEWS. 

Modesty and obscurity are mingled with arrogance 
of pride and distinction in the interviews that the 
Chief Executive of the nation is forced to endure. 

One day an attractively and handsomely-dressed 
woman called to procure the release from prison of a 
relation in whom she professed the deepest interest. 

She was a good talker, and her winning ways seemed 
to be making a deep impression on the President. 
After listening to her story, he wrote a few words on 
a card: "This woman, dear Stanton, is a little smarter 
than she looks to be," enclosed it in an envelope and 
directed her to take it to the Secretary of War. 

On the same day another woman called, more hum- 
ble in appearance, more plainly clad. It was the old 
story. 

Father and son both in the army, the former in 
prison. Could not the latter be discharged from the 
army and sent home to help his mother? 

A few strokes of the pen, a gentle nod of the head, 
and the little woman, her eyes filling with tears ami 
expressing a grateful acknowledgment her tongue 
could not utter, passed out. 

A lady so thankful for the release of her husband 
was in the act of kneeling in thankfulness. "Get up," 
he said, "don't kneel to me, but thank God and go." 

An old lady for the same reason came forward with 
tears in her eyes to express her gratitude. "Good- 
bye, Mr. Lincoln/ 1 said she; "I shall probably never 



PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. 149 

see you again till we meet in heaven." She had the 
President's hand in hers, and he was deeply moved. 
He instantly took her right hand in both of his, and 
following her to the door, said, "I am afraid with all 
my troubles I shall never get to the resting-place you 
speak of; but if I do, I am sure I shall find you. That 
you wish me to get there is, I believe, the best wish 
you could make for me. Good-bye." Then the 
President remarked to a friend, "It is more than many 
can often say, that in doing right one has made two 
people happy in one day. Speed, die when I may, I 
want it said of me by those who know me best, that I 
have always plucked a thistle and planted a flower 
when I thought a flower would grow." 



THE PRESIDENCY NOT A BED OF ROSES. 

An old and intimate friend from Springfield called 
on the President and found him much depressed. 

The President was reclining on a sofa, but rising 
suddenly, he said to his friend : 

"You know better than any man living that from 
my boyhood up my ambition was to be President. I 
am President of one part of this divided country at least ; 
but look at me! Oh, I wish I had never been born! 
I've a white elephant on my hands, one hard to manage. 
With a fire in my front and rear to contend with, the 
jealousies of the military commanders, and not receiv- 
ing that cordial co-operative support from Congress 
that could reasonably be expected with an active and 
formidable enemy in the field threatening the very 
life-blood of the Government, my position is anything 
but a bed of roses." 



iSo PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. 

UNHEALTHY GROUP OF OFFICE SEEKERS. 

A delegation was pressing the claims of a gentleman 
as commissioner to the Sandwich Islands. Among the 
many points urged was that the applicant was in poor 
health. The President closed the interview with the 
good-natured remark: "Gentlemen, I am sorry to say 
that there are eight other applicants for that place, and 
they are all sicker than your man." 



THE OLD LADY AND THE PAIR OF STOCKINGS. 

An old lady from the country called on the Presi- 
dent, her tanned face peering out from the interior of 
a huge sunbonnet. Her errand was to present Mr. 
Lincoln a pair of stockings of her own make a yard 
long. 

Kind tears came to his eyes as she spoke to him, and 
then, holding the stockings one in each hand, dangling 
wide apart for general inspection, he assured her that 
he should take them with him to Washington, where 
(and here his eyes twinkled) he was sure he should not 
be able to find any like them. The amusement of the 
company was not at all diminished by Mr. Boutwell's 
remark, that the lady had evidently made a very cor- 
rect estimate of Mr. Lincoln's latitude and longitude. 



THE PRESIDENT WIELDS AN AX AT THE WASHING- 
TON NAVY YARDS. 

One afternoon during the summer of 1862, the Presi- 
dent accompanied several gentlemen to the Washing- 
ton Navy Yard to witness some experiments with a 



PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. 151 

newly-invented gun. Subsequently the party went 
aboard one of the steamers lying at the wharf. A dis- 
cussion was going on as to the merits of the invention, 
in the midst of which Mr. Lincoln caught sight of some 
axes hanging up outside of the cabin. Leaving the 
group, he quietly went forward, and taking one down, 
returned with it, and said : 

"Gentlemen, you may talk about your 'Raphael 
repeaters' and 'eleven-inch Dahlgrens, ' but here is an 
institution which I guess I understand better than 
either of you. " With that he held the ax out at arm's 
length by the end of the handle, or "helve," as the 
wood-cutters call it — a feat not another person in the 
party could perform, though all made the attempt. 

In such acts as this, showing that he neither forgot 
nor was ashamed of his humble origin, the good Presi- 
dent exhibited his true nobility of character. He was 
a favorite illustration of his favorite poet's words: 

"The rank is but the guinea's stamp, 
The man's the gold, for a' that!" 



A PETITIONER'S SUDDEN CHANGE OF MIND. 

The President was feeling indisposed, and had sent 
for his physician, who upon his arrival informed the 
President that his trouble was either varioloid, or mild 
smallpox. "They're all over me. Is it contagious?" 
said Mr. Lincoln. "Yes," answered the Doctor, 
"very contagious, indeed." 

"Well," said a visitor, "I can't stop. I just called 
to see you. ' ' 



152 PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. 

"Oh, don't be in a hurry, sir," placidly said the 
President. 

"Thank ) r ou, sir; I'll call again," retreating 
abruptly. 

"Some people," said the Executive, looking after 
him, "said they could not take very well to my procla- 
mation, but now, I am happy to say, I have something 
that everybody can take." 



'THOROUGH. 



Some one came to the President with a story about a 
plot to accomplish some mischief in the Government. 
Lincoln listened to what was a very superficial and ill- 
formed story, and then said: "There is one thing 
that I have learned, and that you have not. It is only 
one word — 'thorough.'" Then, bringing his hand 
down on the table with a thump to emphasize his 
meaning, he added, "thorough." 



MR. LINCOLN'S TACT. 

Two young men called on the President from Spring- 
field, 111. Mr. Lincoln shook hands with them, and 
asked about the crops, the weather, etc. Finally one 
of the young men said, "Mother is not well, and she 
sent me up to inquire of you how the suit about the 
Wells property is getting on." Mr. Lincoln, in the 
same even tone with which he had asked the question, 
said: "(live my best wishes and respects to your 
mother, and tell her that I have so many outside mat- 
ters to attend to now, that I have put that case, and 



PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. 153 

others, in the hands of a lawyer friend of mine, and if 
you will call on him" (giving name and address), "he 
will give you the information you want." After they 
had gone, I said: "Mr. Lincoln, you did not seem to 
know the young men?" He laughed and said: "No, 
I had never seen them before, and I had to beat 
around the bush until I found who they were. It was 
uphill work, but I topped it at last." 



LINCOLN'S HAIR. 



"By the way," said Mr. Lincoln to Colonel Cannon, 
"I can tell you a good story about my hair. When I 
was nominated at Chicago, an enterprising fellow 
thought that a great many people would like to see 
how Abe Lincoln looked, and, as I had not long before 
sat for a photograph, the fellow, having seen it, rushed 
over and bought the negative. 

"He at once got no end of wood-cuts, and so active 
was their circulation they were soon selling in all parts 
of the country. 

"Soon after they reached Springfield. I heard a 
boy crying them for sale on the streets. 'Here's your 
likeness of Abe Lincoln!' he shouted. 'Buy one, 
price only two shillings ! Will look a great deal better 
when he gets his hair combed!' " 



"OH, PA! HE ISN'T UGLY!" 

Lincoln's great love for children easily won their 
confidence. 
A little girl, who had been told that the President 



154 PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. 

was very homely, was taken by her father to see the 
President at the White House. Mr. Lincoln took her 
upon his knee and chatted with her for a moment in 
his merry way, when she turned to her father and 
exclaimed: "Oh, Pa! he isn't ugly at all; he's beau- 
tiful!" 



SIMPLICITY. 



Mr. Jeriah Bonham describes a visit that he paid Mr. 
Lincoln at his room in the State House, where he 
found him quite alone except that two of his children, 
one of whom was Tad, were with him. 

The door was open. 

We walked in and were at once recognized and 
seated — the two boys still continuing their play about 
the room. Tad was spinning his top; and Mr. Lin- 
coln, as we entered, had just finished adjusting the 
string for him so as to give the top the greatest degree 
of force. He remarked that he was having a little fun 
with the boys. 

At another time, at Lincoln's residence, Tad came 
into the room, and putting his hand to his mouth, and 
his mouth to his father's ear, said in a boy's whisper, 
"Ma says come to supper." 

All heard the announcement, and Mr. Lincoln, per- 
ceiving this, said: "You have heard, gentlemen, the 
announcement concerning the interesting state of 
things in the dining-room. It will never do for me, if 
elected, to make this young man a member of my 
cabinet, for it is plain he cannot be trusted with secrets 
of state." 



PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. 155 

MR. LINCOLN'S GREAT LOVE FOR LITTLE TAD. 

No matter who was with the President, or how 
intently absorbed, his little son Tad was always wel- 
come. He almost always accompanied his father. 
Once, on the way to Fortress Monroe, he became very 
troublesome. The President was much engaged in 
conversation with the party who accompanied him, and 
he at length said : 

"Tad, if you will be a good boy, and not disturb me 
any more until we get to Fortress Monroe, I will give 
you a dollar. ' ' 

The hope of reward was effectual for a while in 
securing silence, but, boy-like, Tad soon forgot his 
promise, and was as noisy as ever. Upon reaching 
their destination, however, he said, very promptly, 
"Father, I want my dollar." 

Mr. Lincoln looked at him half-reproachfully for an 
instant, and then taking from his pocketbook a dollar 
note, he said: "Well, my son, at any rate, I will keep 
my part of the bargain. ' ' 

While paying a visit to Commodore Porter, of Fort- 
ress Monroe, on one occasion, an incident occurred, 
subsequently related by Lieutenant Braine, one of 
the officers on board the flag-ship, to the Rev. Dr. 
Ewer, of New York. Noticing that the banks of 
the river were dotted with spring blossoms, the Presi- 
dent said, with the manner of one asking a special 
favor : 

"Commodore, Tad is very fond of flowers; won't 
you let a couple of your men take a boat and go with 
him for an hour or two along the shore, and gather a 
few? It will be a great gratification to him. " 



156 PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. 

THE HARDEST TRIAL OF LINCOLN'S LIFE. 

In February, 1862, Mr. Lincoln was visited by a 
severe affliction in the death of his beautiful son, 
Willie, and the extreme illness of his son Thomas, 
familiarly called "Tad." This was a new burden, and 
the visitation which, in his firm faith in Providence, he 
regarded as providential, was also inexplicable. A 
Christian lady from Massachusetts, who was officiating 
as nurse in one of the hospitals at the time, came to 
attend the sick children. She reports that Mr. Lincoln 
watched with her about the bedside of the sick ones, 
and that he often walked the room, saying sadly: 

"This is the hardest trial of my life; why is it? 
Why is it?" 

In the course of conversation with her, he ques- 
tioned her concerning his situation. She told him that 
she was a widow, and that her husband and two chil- 
dren were in heaven ; and added that she saw the hand 
of God in it all, and that she had never loved him so 
much before as she had since her affliction. 

"How is that brought about?" inquired Mr. Lincoln. 

"Simply by trusting in God and feeling that he does 
all things well," she replied. 

"Did you submit fully under the first loss?" he asked. 

"No," she answered, "not wholly; but, as blow came 
upon blow, and all were taken, I could and did submit, 
and was very happy." 

He responded: "I am glad to hear you say that. 
Your experience will help me to bear my affliction." 

On being assured that many Christians were praying 
for him on the morning of the funeral, he wiped away 
the tears that sprang in his eyes, and said: 




LINCOLN AND HIS SON "TAD," 



PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. 159 

"I am glad to hear that. I want them to pray for 
me. I need their prayers. ' ' 

As he was going out to the burial, the good lady 
expressed her sympathy with him. He thanked her 
gently, and said: 

"I will try to go to God with my sorrows." 

A few days afterward she asked him if he could trust 
God. He replied : 

"I think I can, and will try. I wish I had that 
childlike faith you speak of, and I trust he will give it 
to me. ' ' And then he spoke of his mother, whom so 
many years before he had committed to the dust 
among the wilds of Indiana. In this hour of his great 
trial the memory of her who had held him upon her 
bosom, and soothed his childish griefs, came back to 
him with tenderest recollections. "I remember her 
prayers," said he, "and they have always followed me. 
They have clung to me all my life." 



DEATH OF LINCOLN'S FAVORITE SON. 

Mr. Lincoln regarded the death of his favorite son as 
the turning-point in his spiritual history. He said, 
"That blow overwhelmed me. It showed me my 
weakness as I had never felt it before." 

Again, in 1862, at Fortress Monroe, after having 
read the discussion between Hamlet and his courtiers, 
and the soliloquy in which conscience debates of a 
future state, also where Constance bewails her impris- 
oned lost boy; then, closing the book, and recalling the 
words, "And, Father Cardinal, I have heard you say, 
that we shall see and know our friends in heaven. " "If 



160 PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. 

that be true, I shall see my boy again," Mr. Lincoln 
said: "Colonel [Cannon], did you ever dream of a lost 
friend, and feel that you were holding sweet com- 
munion with that friend, and yet have a sad conscious- 
ness that it was not a reality? Just so I dream of my 
boy Willie." Overcome with emotion, he dropped his 
head on his Bible, and sobbed aloud. 



HOW YOUNG DANIEL WEBSTER ESCAPES A FLOG- 
GING, AS RELATED BY LINCOLN. 

Mr. Lincoln, on one occasion, narrated to Hon. Mr. 
Odell and others, with much zest, the following story 
about young Daniel Webster: 

When quite young, at school, Daniel was one day 
guilty of a gross violation of the rules. He was 
detected in the act, and called up by the teacher for 
punishment. This was to be the old-fashioned 
"feruling" of the hand. His hands happened to be 
very dirty. Knowing this, on the way to the teacher's 
desk, he spit upon the palm of his right hand, wiping 
it off upon the side of his pantaloons. 

"Give me your hand, sir," said the teacher, very 
sternly. 

Out went the right hand, partly cleansed. The 
teacher looked at it a moment, and said: 

"Daniel, if you will find another hand in this 
schoolroom as filthy as that, I will let you off this 
time." 

Instantly from behind the back came the left hand. 
"Here it is, sir," was the ready reply. 

"That will do," said the teacher, "for this time; 
you can take your seat, sir." 



PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. 161 

"MOTHER, HE'S JUST THE SAME OLD ABE." 

"It was during the dark days of 1863," says 
Schuyler Colfax, "on the evening of a public reception 
given at the White House. The foreign legations 
were there gathered about the President. 

A young English nobleman was just being presented 
to the President. Inside the door, evidently overawed 
by the splendid assemblage, was an honest-faced old 
farmer, who shrank from the passing crowd until he 
and the plain-faced old lady clinging to his arm were 
pressed back to the wall. 

The President, tall, and, in a measure, stately in his 
personal presence, looking over the heads of the 
assembly, said to the English nobleman: "Excuse me, 
my Lord, there's an old friend of mine." 

Passing backward to the door, Mr. Lincoln said, as 
he grasped the old farmer's hand: 

"Why, John, I'm glad to see you. I haven't seen 

you since you and I made rails for old Mrs. , in 

Sangamon County, in 1837. How are you?" 

The old man turned to his wife with quivering lip, 
and without replying to the President's salutation, said : 

"Mother, he's just the same old Abe!" 

"Mr. Lincoln," he said finally, "you know we had 
three boys; they all enlisted in the same company; 
John was killed in the 'seven days' fight'; Sam was 
taken prisoner and starved to death, and Henry is in 
the hospital. We had a little money, an' I said, 
'Mother, we'll go to Washington and see him. An' 
while we were here,' I said, 'we'll go up and see the 
President.' " 

Mr. Lincoln's eyes grew dim, and across his rugged, 



162 PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. 

homely, tender face swept the wave of sadness his 
friends had learned to know, and he said: 

"John, we all hope this miserable war will soon be 
over. I must see all these folks here for an hour or 
so, and I want to talk with you." The old lady and 
her husband were hustled into a private room, in spite 
of their protests. 

"TIME LOST DON'T COUNT." 

Mr. Weed, the veteran journalist and politician, 
relates how, when he was opposing the claims of 
Montgomery Blair, who aspired to a cabinet appoint- 
ment, when Mr. Lincoln inquired of Mr. Weed whom 
he would recommend, "Henry Winter Davis," was 
the response. "David Davis, I see, has been posting 
you up on this question," retorted Lincoln. "He has 
Davis on the brain. I think Maryland must be a good 
State to move from." The President then told a story 
of a witness in court in a neighboring county, who, on 
being asked his age, replied, "Sixty." Being satisfied 
he was much older the question was repeated, and on 
receiving the same answer the court admonished the 
witness, saying, "The court knows you to be much 
older than sixty. " 

"Oh, I understand now," was there joinder, "you're 
thinking of those ten years I spent on the eastern shore 
of Maryland; that was so much time lost, and didn't 
count." 



CABINET RECONSTRUCTION. 

The President had decided to select a new war min- 
ister, and the leading Republican Senators thought the 



PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. 163 

occasion was opportune to change the whole seven 
Cabinet ministers. They, therefore, earnestly advised 
him to make a clean sweep, and select seven new men, 
and so restore the waning confidence of the country. 
The President listened with patient courtesy, and when 
the Senators had concluded he said, with a character- 
istic gleam of humor in his eye : 

"Gentlemen, your request for a change of the whole 
Cabinet because I have made one change, reminds me 
of a story I once heard in Illinois, of a farmer who 
was much troubled by skunks. His wife insisted on 
his trying to get rid of them. He loaded his shotgun 
one moonlight night and awaited developments. After 
some time the wife heard the shotgun go off, and, in a 
few minutes, the farmer entered the house. 'What 
luck have you?' said she. 'I hid myself behind the 
wood-pile,' said the old man, 'with the shotgun pointed 
towards the hen roost, and before long there appeared 
not one skunk, but seven. I took aim, blazed away, 
killed one, and he raised such a fearful smell that I con- 
cluded it was best to let the other six go. ' " 

The Senators laughed and retired. 



HE'S ALL RIGHT; BUT A CHRONIC SQUEALER. 

One of the Northern Governors was able, earnest, 
and untiring in aiding the administration, but always 
complaining. After reading all his papers, the Presi- 
dent said, in a cheerful and reassuring tone: 

"Never mind, never mind; those dispatches don't 
mean anything. Just go right ahead. The Governor 
is like a boy I saw once at a launching. When every- 



i6 4 PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. 

thing was ready, they picked out a boy and sent him 
under the ship to knock away the trigger and let her 
go. At the critical moment everything depended on 
the boy. He had to do the job well by a direct, 
vigorous blow, and then lie flat and keep still while 
the boat slid over him. 

"The boy did everything right, but he yelled as if 
he were being murdered from the time he got under 
the keel until he got out. I thought the hide was all 
scraped off his back; but he wasn't hurt at all. 

"The master of the } T ard told me that this boy was 
always chosen for that job, that he did his work well, 
that he never had been hurt, but that he always 
squealed in that way. That's just the way with 

Governor . Make up your mind that he is not 

hurt, and that he is doing the work right, and pay no 
attention to his squealing. He only wants to make 
you understand how hard his task is, and that he is on 
hand performing it." 



SECRETARY STANTON'S UNCOMPLIMENTARY 
OPINION. 

Mr. Lovejoy, heading a committee of western men, 
discussed an important scheme with the President, and 
was then directed to explain it to Secretary Stanton. 
Upon presenting themselves to the Secretary, and 
showing the President's order, the Secretary said, 
"Did Lincoln give you an order of that kind?" "He 

did, sir." "Then he is a d d fool," said the angry 

Secretary. "Do yon mean to say that the President is 

ad d fool?" asked Lovejoy. in amazement. "Yes, 

sir, if he gave you such an order as that." 



PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. 165 

The bewildered Illinoisan betook himself at once to 
the President and related the result of the conference. 

"Did Stanton say I was a d d fool?" asked Lincoln, 

at the close of the recital. "He did, sir, and repeated 
it." After a moment's pause, and looking up, the 

President said: "If Stanton said I was a d d fool, 

then I must be one, for he is nearly always right, and 
generally says what he means. I will slip over and 
see him." 

LINCOLN'S MODESTY. 

Secretary Chase, when Secretary of the Treasury, 
had a disagreement, and the Secretary had resigned. 

The President was urged not to accept it, as "Secre- 
tary Chase is to-day a national necessity, ' ' his advisers 
said. " How mistaken you are!" he quietly observed. 
"Yet it is not strange; I used to have similar notions. 
No! if we should all be turned out to-morrow, and 
could come back here in a week, we should find our 
places filled by a lot of fellows doing just as well as we 
did, and in many instances better. 

"As the Irishman said, 'In this country one man is 
as good as another; and, for the matter of that, very 
often a great deal better. ' No ; this Government does 
not depend upon the life of any man. " . ^ 



AN INCIDENT IN LINCOLN'S SECOND INAUGU- 
RATION. 

Noah Brooks, in his "Reminiscences," relates the 
following incident: 

While the ceremonies of the second inauguration 
were in progress, just as Lincoln stepped forward to 



166 PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. 

take the oath of office, the sun, which had been 
obscured by rain-clouds, burst in splendor. In con- 
versation the next day, the President asked: 

"Did you notice that sun-burst? It made my heart 
jump." 

Later in the month, Miss Anna Dickinson, in a lec- 
ture delivered in the hall of the House of Represent- 
atives, eloquently alluded to the sun-burst as a happy 
omen. The President sat directly in front of the 
speaker, and from the reporters' gallery, behind her, 
I had caught his eye, soon after he sat down. When 
Miss Dickinson referred to the sunbeam, he looked up 
to me, involuntarily, and I thought his eyes were 
suffused with moisture. Perhaps they were ; but the 
next day he said : 

"I wonder if Miss Dickinson saw me wink at you?" 



KINDNESS OF HEART. 

An old acquaintance of the President visited him in 
Washington. Lincoln desired to give him a place. 
Thus encouraged, the visitor, who was an honest man, 
but wholly inexperienced in public affairs or business, 
asked for a high office, Superintendent of the Mint. 
The President was aghast, and said: "Good gracious! 
Why didn't lie ask to be Secretary of the Treasury, and 
have done with it?" Afterwards, he said: "Well, 

now, I never thought Mr. had anything more than 

average ability, when we were young men together. 
But, then, I suppose he thought the same thing about 
me, and — here I am!" 



PRESIDENTIAL INCIDENTS. 167 

Lincoln was censured for appointing one that had 
zealously opposed his second term. 

He replied: "Well, I suppose Judge E., having been 
disappointed before, did behave pretty ugly, but that 
wouldn't make him any less fit for the place; and I 
think I have Scriptural authority for appointing him. 
You remember when the Lord was on Mount Sinai 
getting out a commission for Aaron, that same Aaron 
was at the foot of the mountain making a false god for 
the people to worship. Yet Aaron got his commis- 
sion, you know." 



Stories of the War. 



THE PRESIDENT "MAKING GENERALS." 

H. C. Whitney wrote in 1866: "I was in Washing- 
ton in the Indian service for a few days before August, 
1 86 1, and I merely said to Lincoln, one day, 'Every- 
thing is drifting into the war, and I guess you will 
have to put me in the army. ' The President looked 
up from his work and said, good-humoredly, 'I'm 
making generals now, in a few days I will be making 
quartermasters, and then I'll fix you.' " 



HARDTACK WANTED, NOT GENERALS. 

Secretary Stanton told the President the following 
that greatly amused him, as he was especially fond of 
a joke at the expense of some high military or civil 
dignity. 

When Stanton was making a trip up the Broad 
river in North Carolina, in a tub boat, a Federal 
picket yelled out, "What have you got on board of 
that tug?" 

The severe and dignified answer was, "The Secretary 
of War and Major-General Foster." 

Instantly the picket roared back, "We've got Major- 
Generals enough up here. Why don't you bring us up 
some hardtaek ?" 

168 



STORIES OP THE WAR. 169 

WHIPPED AND THEN RAN. 

Three or four days after the battle of Bull Run, 
some gentlemen who had been on the field called 
upon him. 

He inquired very minutely regarding all the cir- 
cumstances of the affair, and after listening with the 
utmost attention, said, with a touch of humor: "So 
it is your notion that we whipped the rebels and then 
ran away from them!" 



A TOUCHING SONG INFLUENCES LINCOLN TO 
PARDON A REBEL PRISONER. 

The following interesting particulars connected with 
the early life of Abraham Lincoln, are from the 
Virginia (111.) Enquirer, of date of March 1, 1879: 

"John McNamer was buried last Sunday, near 
Petersburg, Menard County. A long while ago he 
was Assessor and Treasurer of the County for several 
successive terms. Mr. McNamer was an early settler 
in that section, and before the town of Petersburg was 
laid out, in business in Old Salem, a village that 
existed many years ago two miles south of the present 
site of Petersburg. Abe Lincoln was then postmaster 
of the place and sold whisky to its inhabitants. There 
are old-timers yet living in Menard who bought many 
a jug of corn-juice from Old Abe when he lived at 
Salem. It was here that Annie Rutledge dwelt, and 
in whose grave Lincoln wrote that his heart was 
buried. As the story runs, the fair and gentle Annie 
was originally John McNamer's sweetheart, but Abe 



170 STORIES OF THE WAR. 

took a 'shine' to the young lady, and succeeded in 
heading off McNamer and won her affections. But 
Annie Rutledge died, and Lincoln went to Springfield, 
where he some time afterwards married. 

"It is related that during the war a lady belonging 
to a prominent Kentucky family visited Washington to 
beg for her son's pardon, who was then in prison under 
sentence of death for belonging to a band of guerrillas 
who had committed many murders and outrages. 
With the mother was her daughter, a beautiful young 
lady, who was an accomplished musician. Mr. Lincoln 
received the visitors in his usual kind manner, and the 
mother made known the object of her visit, accompany- 
ing her plea with tears and sobs and all the customary 
romantic incidents. 

"There were probably extenuating circumstances in 
favor of the young rebel prisoner, and while the 
President seemed to be deeply pondering, the young 
lady moved to a piano near by and taking a seat 
commenced to sing 'Gentle Annie,' a very sweet and 
pathetic ballad which, before the war. was a familiar 
song in almost every household in the Union, and is 
not yet entirely forgotten, for that matter. It is to 
be presumed that the young lady sang the song with 
more plaintiveness and effect than Old Abe had ever 
heard it in Springfield. During its rendition, he arose 
from his seat, crossed the room to a window in the 
westward, through which he gazed for several minutes 
with a 'sad, far-away look,' which has so often been 
noted as one of his peculiarities. His memory, no 
doubt, went back to the days of his humble life on 
the Sangamon, and with visions of Old Salem and its 
rustic people, who once gathered in his primitive store, 



STORIES OF THE WAR. 171 

came a picture of the 'Gentle Annie' of his youth, 
whose ashes had rested for many long years under 
the wild flowers and brambles of the old rural bury- 
ing-ground, but whose spirit then, perhaps, guided 
him to the side of mercy. Be that as it may, Mr. 
Lincoln drew a large red silk handkerchief from his 
coat-pocket, with which he wiped his face vigorously. 
Then he turned, advanced quickly to his desk, wrote 
a brief note, which he handed to the lady, and informed 
her that it was the pardon she sought. The scene was 
no doubt touching in a great degree and proves that a 
nice song, well sung, has often a powerful influence in 
recalling tender recollections. It proves, also, that 
Abraham Lincoln was a man of fine feelings, and that, 
if the occurrence was a put-up job on the lady's part 
it accomplished the purpose all the same. ' ' 



RIGHTEOUS INDIGNATION. 

A cashiered officer, seeking to be restored through 
the power of the executive, became insolent, because 
the President, who believed the man guilty, would 
not accede to his repeated requests, at last said, "Well, 
Mr. President, I see you are fully determined not to 
do me justice!" 

This was too aggravating even for Mr. Lincoln; 
rising he suddenly seized the disgraced officer by the 
coat collar, and marched him forcibly to the door, 
saying as he ejected him into the passage: "Sir, I 
give you fair warning never to show your face in this 
room again. I can bear censure, but not insult. I 
never wish to see your face again." 



172 STORIES OF THE WAR. 

LINCOLN'S HIGH COMPLIMENT TO THE WOMEN 
OF AMERICA. 

A fair for the benefit of the soldiers, held at the 
Patent Office, Washington, called out Mr. Lincoln as 
an interested visitor; and he was not permitted to 
retire without giving a word to those in attendance. 
"In this extraordinary war," said he, "extraordinary 
developments have \ manifested themselves, such as 
have not been seen in former wars ; and among these 
manifestations nothing has been more remarkable than 
these fairs for the relief of suffering soldiers and their 
families. And the chief agent in these fairs are the 
women of America. I am not accustomed to the use 
of language of eulogy ; I have never studied the art of 
paying compliments to women ; but I must say that 
if all that has been said by orators and poets since the 
creation of the world, in praise of women, were applied 
to the women of America, it would not do them justice 
for their conduct during the war. I will close by 
saying, God bless the women of America!" 



LINCOLN'S PLAN OF WAR. 

The President explained to Mr. Whitney the theory 
of the Rebellion by the aid of the maps before him. 

Running his long fore-finger down the map, he 
stopped at Virginia. "We must drive them away from 
here" (Manassas Gap), he said, " and clear them out 
of this part of the State so that they cannot threaten 
us here (Washington) and get into Maryland. 

"We must keep up a good and thorough blockade of 
their ports. We must march an army into East 



STORIES OF THE WAR. 173 

Tennessee and liberate the Union sentiment there. 
Finally we must rely on the people growing tired and 
saying to their leaders, 'We have had enough of this 
thing, we will bear it no longer.' " Such was Mr. 
Lincoln's plan for heading off the Rebellion in the 
summer of 1861. How it enlarged as the war pro- 
gressed, from a call for seventy thousand volunteers to 
one for five hundred thousand men and five hundred 
millions of dollars is a matter of well-known history. 



THE PRESIDENT'S OBEYING ORDERS. 

The President was at the battle of Fort Stevens, and 
standing in a very exposed position, he apparently had 
been recognized by the enemy. A young colonel of 
artillery, who appeared to be the officer of the day, 
finally decided to insist on the President removing to 
a safer location. 

He walked to where the President was looking over 
the parapet, and said, "Mr. President, you are standing 
within range of four hundred rebel rifles. Please come 
down to a safer place. If you do not, it will be my 
duty to call a file of men, and make you. " 

"And you would do quite right, my boy!" said the 
President, coming down at once. "You are in com- 
mand of the fort. I should be the last man to set an 
example of disobedience!" 



THE MILLIONAIRES WHO WANTED A GUNBOAT. 

A delegation of New York millionaires in 1862 
waited on President Lincoln to request that he furnish 
a gunboat for the protection of New York harbor. 



i74 STORIES OF THE WAR. 

Mr. Lincoln, after listening patiently, said, "Gentle- 
men : The credit of the Government is at a very low 
ebb; greenbacks are not worth more than forty or fifty 
cents on the dollar; it is impossible for me, in the 
present condition of things, to furnish you a gunboat, 
and, in this condition of things, if I was worth half as 
much as you, gentlemen, are represented to be, and 
as badly frightened as you seem to be, I would build 
a gunboat and give it to the Government." 

They went away, sadder but wiser men. 



THE PRESIDENT REFUSES TO SIGN TWENTY-FOUR 
DEATH WARRANTS. 

A personal friend of President Lincoln says: "I 
called on him one day in the early part of the war. 
He had just written a pardon for a young man who had 
been sentenced to be shot, for sleeping at his post, as 
a sentinel. He remarked as he read it to me: 

" 'I could not think of going into eternity with the 
blood of the poor young man on my skirts. ' Then he 
added: 'It is not to be wondered at that a boy, raised 
on a farm, probably in the habit of going to bed at 
dark, should, when required to watch, fall asleep; and 
I cannot consent to shoot him for such an act.' " 

Tli is story, with its moral, is made complete by Rev. 
Newman Hall, of London, who, in a sermon preached 
after and upon Mr. Lincoln's death, says that the dead 
body of this youth was found among the slain on the 
field of Fredericksburg, wearing next his heart a 
photograph of his preserver, beneath which the grate- 
ful fellow had written, "God bless President Lincoln!" 

From the same sermon another anecdote is gleaned, 



STORIES OF THE WAR. 175 

of a similar character, which is evidently authentic. 
An officer of the army, in conversation with the 
preacher, said: 

"The first week of my command there were twenty- 
four deserters sentenced by court martial to be shot, 
and the warrants for their execution were sent to the 
President to be signed. He refused. I went to 
Washington and had an interview. I said: 

" 'Mr. President, unless these men are made an 
example of, the army itself is in danger. Mercy to the 
few is cruelty to the many. ' 

"He replied: 'Mr. General, there are already too 
many weeping widows in the United States. For 
God's sake, don't ask me to add to the number, for I 
won't do it.' " 



AMONG THE WOUNDED. 

As one stretcher was passing Mr. Lincoln, he heard 
the voice of a lad calling to his mother in agonizing 
tones. His great heart filled. He forgot the crisis 
of the hour. Stopping the carriers he knelt, and bend- 
ing over him asked: "What can I do for you, my 
poor child?" 

' ' Oh, you will do nothing for me, ' ' he replied. ' ' You 
are a Yankee. I cannot hope that my message to my 
mother will ever reach her." Mr. Lincoln in tears, 
his voice full of tenderest love, convinced the boy of 
his sincerity, and he gave his good-bye words without 
reserve. 

The President directed them copied, and ordered 
that they be sent that night, with a flag of truce, into 
the enemy's lines. 



i 7 6 STORIES OF THE WAR. 

THE LITTLE DRUMMER BOY. 

The President noticed a small, pale, delicate looking 
boy, about thirteen years old, among- the number in 
the ante-chamber. The President saw him standing- 
there, looking so feeble and faint, and said: "Come 
here, my boy, and tell me what you want." The boy 
advanced, placed his hand on the arm of the President's 
chair, and with a bowed head and timid accents said : 
"Mr. President, I have been a drummer boy in a 
regiment for two years, and my colonel got angry with 
me and turned me off. I was taken sick and have 
been a long time in the hospital." The President 
discovered that the boy had no home, no father — he 
had died in the army — no mother. "I have no father, 
no mother, no brothers, no sisters, and," bursting 
into tears, "no friends — nobody cares for me." Mr. 
Lincoln's eyes filled with tears, and the boy's heart 
was soon made glad by a request to certain officials 
"to care for this poor boy." 



A CASE WHERE LINCOLN THOUGHT SHOOTING 
WOULD DO NO GOOD. 

The Hon. Mr. Kellogg, representative from Essex 
County, N. Y., received a dispatch one evening from 
the army to the effect that a young townsman who had 
been induced to enlist through his instrumentality had, 
for a serious demeanor, been convicted by a court- 
martial and was to be shot the next day. Greatly 
agitated, Mr. Kellogg went to the Secretary of War 
and urged, in the strongest manner, a reprieve. 
Stanton was inexorable. 



STORIES OF THE WAR. 177 

"Too many cases of this kind had been let off," said 
he, "and it was time an example was made." 

Exhausting his eloquence in vain, Mr. Kellogg said : 

"Well, Mr. Secretary, the boy is not going to be 
shot, of that I give you fair warning!" 

Leaving the War Department, he went directly to 
the White House, although the hour was late. The 
sentinel on duty told him that special orders had been 
given to admit no one whatever that night. 

After a long parley, by pledging himself to assume 
the responsibility of the act, the Congressman passed 
in. Mr. Lincoln had retired, but indifferent to 
etiquette or ceremony, Judge Kellogg pressed his way 
through all obstacles to his sleeping apartment. In 
an excited manner he stated that the dispatch announc- 
ing the hour of execution had just reached him. 

"This man must not be shot, Mr. President," said 
he. "I can't help what he may have done. Why, he 
is an old neighbor of mine; I can't allow him to be 
shot!" 

Mr. Lincoln had remained in bed, quietly listening 
to the protestations of his old friend (they were in 
Congress together). He at length said: 

"Well, I don't believe shooting will do him any 
good. Give me that pen. " 

And so saying, "red tape" was unceremoniously cut, 
and another poor fellow's life was indefinitely extended. 



NEW INSTRUCTIONS TO GENERALS. 

"War Department, Washington, July 22, '62. 
"First ordered that military commanders within 
the States of Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, 



178 STORIES OF THE WAR. 

Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and 
Arkansas, in an orderly manner, seize and use any 
property, real or personal, which may be necessary or 
convenient for their several commands, for supplies, 
or for other military purposes ; and that while property 
may be all stored for proper military objects, none 
shall be destroyed in wantonness nor malice. 

"Second: That military and naval commanders shall 
employ as laborers within and from said states, so 
many persons of African descent as can be advanta- 
geously used for military or naval purposes, giving 
them reasonable wages for their labor. 

"Third: That as to both property and persons of 
African descent, accounts shall be kept sufficiently 
accurate and in detail to show quantities and amounts, 
and from whom both property and such persons shall 
have come, as a basis upon which compensation can 
be made in proper cases; and the several departments 
of this Government shall attend to and perform their 
appropriate parts towards the execution of these 
orders. By order of the President." 



LINCOLN REFUSES PARDON TO A 
SLAVE-STEALER. 

Hon. John B. Alley, of Linn, Massachusetts, was 
made the bearer to the President of a petition for 
pardon, by a person confined in the Newburyport jail 
for being engaged in the slave trade. He had been 
sentenced to five years' imprisonment, and the pay- 
ment of a fine of one thousand dollars. The petition 
was accompanied by a letter to Mr. Alley, in which the 
prisoner acknowledged his guilt and the justice of his 



STORIES OF THE WAR. 179 

sentence. He was very penitent — at least on paper — 
and had received the full measure of his punishment, 
so far as it related to the term of his imprisonment, 
but he was still held because he could not pay his fine. 
Mr. Alley read the letter to the President, who was 
much moved by its pathetic appeals; and when he had 
himself read the petition he looked up and said: "My 
friend, that is a very touching appeal to our feelings. 
You know my weakness is to be, if possible, too 
easily moved by appeals for mercy, and if this man 
were guilty of the foulest murder that the arm of man 
could perpetrate I might forgive him on such an 
appeal ; but the man who could go to Africa, and rob 
her of her children, and sell them into interminable 
bondage, with no other motive than that which is 
furnished by dollars and cents, is so much worse than 
the most depraved murderer, that he can never receive 
pardon at my hands. No! he may rot in jail before 
he shall have liberty by any act of mine. ' ' A sudden 
crime, committed under strong temptation, was venial 
in his eyes, on evidence of repentance ; but the calculat- 
ing, mercenary crime of man-stealing and man-selling, 
with all the cruelties that are essential accompaniments 
to the business, could win from him, as an officer of 
the people, no pardon. 



LINCOLN'S INFLUENCE WITH THE 
ADMINISTRATION. 

Many smiles have been caused by the quaint remark 
of the President, "My dear sir, I have not much influ- 
ence with the administration." 

Mr. Stanton, Secretary of War, once replied to an 



i8o STORIES OF THE WAR. 

order from the President, to give a colonel a com- 
mission in place of the resigning brigadier : 

"I shan't doit, sir. I shan't do it! It isn't the way 
to do it, sir, and I shan't do it. I don't propose to 
argue the question with you, sir." 

A few days after the friend of the applicant that 
presented the order to Stanton called upon the Presi- 
dent and related his reception. "A look of vexation 
came over the face of the President, and he seemed 
unwilling to talk of it, and desired me to see him 
another day. I did so, when he gave me a positive 
order for the promotion. I told him I would not speak 
to Stanton again until he apologized. 'Oh,' said the 
President, 'Stanton has gone to Fortress Monroe, and 
Dana is acting. He will attend to it for you. ' This 
he said with a manner of relief, as if it was a piece of 
good luck to find a man there who would obey his orders. 
The nomination was sent to the Senate and confirmed." 

Lincoln was the actual head of the administration, 
and whenever he chose to do so he controlled Stanton 
as well as the other Cabinet ministers. 

One instance will suffice: 

Stanton on one occasion said: "Now, Mr. President, 
those are the facts and you must see that your order 
cannot be executed." 

Lincoln replied in a somewhat positive tone: "Mr. 
Secretary, I reckon you'll have to execute the order." 
Stanton replied with vigor: "Mr. President, I cannot 
do it. This order is an improper one, and I cannot 
execute it." 

Lincoln fixed his eyes upon Stanton, and in a firm 
voice and accent that clearly showed his determination, 
he said: "Mr. Secretary, it will have to be done." 



STORIES OF THE WAR. 181 

LINCOLN DEFENDS HIS USE OF THE WORD 

"SUGAR-COATED" IN A PUBLIC 

DOCUMENT. 

Mr. Defrees, the Government printer, states that, 
when one of the President's messages was being 
printed, he was a good deal disturbed by the use of the 
term "sugar-coated," and finally went to Mr. Lincoln 
about it. Their relations to each other being of the 
most intimate character, he told the President frankly 
that he ought to remember that a message to Congress 
was a different affair from a speech at a mass meeting 
in Illinois; that the messages became a part of history, 
and should be written accordingly. 

"What is the matter now?" inquired the President. 

"Why," said Mr. Defrees, "you have used an 
undignified expression in the message"; and then, 
reading the paragraph aloud, he added, "I would alter 
the structure of that if I were you." 

"Defrees," replied Mr. Lincoln, "that word expresses 
exactly my idea, and I am not going to change it. 
The time will come in this country, when people won't 
know exactly what 'sugar-coated' means." 

On a subsequent occasion, Mr. Defrees states that a 
certain sentence of another message was very awk- 
wardly constructed. Calling the President's attention 
to it in the proof copy, the latter acknowledged the 
force of the objection raised, and said, "Go home, 
Defrees, and see if you can better it. ' ' 

The next day Mr. Defrees took him his amendment. 
Mr. Lincoln met him by saying: 

"Seward found the same fault that you did, and he 
has been rewriting the paragraph also." Then, read- 
ing Mr. Defrees' version, he said, "I believe you have 



i8 2 STORIES OF THE WAR. 

beaten Seward; but, 'I jings, ' I think I can beat you 
both. ' ' Then, taking up his pen, he wrote the sentence 
as it was finally printed. 



BAILING OUT THE POTOMAC RIVER. 

An obscure officer persisted in telling and re-telling 
his troubles to the President on a summer afternoon 
when the President was tired and careworn. After 
listening patiently, he finally turned upon the man, 
and looking wearily out upon the broad Potomac in 
the distance, said in a peremptory tone that ended the 
interview: 

"Now, my man, go away, go away. I cannot 
meddle in your case. I could as easily bail out the 
Potomac River with a teaspoon as attend to all the 
details of the army." 

And thus one after another had to be disposed of, 

day after day. At another time, Governor went 

to the office of the War Department in a towering 
rage. I said to the President: 

"I suppose you found it necessary to make large 
concessions to him, as he returned from you perfectly 
satisfied." "Oh, no," he replied, "I did not concede 
anything. You have heard how that Illinois farmer 
got rid of a big log that was too big to haul out, too 
knotty to split, and too wet and soggy to burn. 
'Well, now,' said he, in response to the inquiries of his 
neighbors one Sunday, as to how he got rid of it; 
'Well, now, boys, if you won't divulge the secret, I'll 
tell you how I got rid of it — I ploughed around it.' 
Now," said Lincoln, "don't tell anybody, but that's 



STORIES OF THE WAR. 183 

the way I got rid of Governor . I ploughed 

around him, but it took me three mortal hours to do 
it, and I was afraid every minute he'd see what I 
was at. ' ' 



THE HON. FREDERICK DOUGLASS TELLS OF AN 
INTERVIEW WITH LINCOLN. 

The well-known Frederick Douglass, in the North 
Western Advocate, says: 

"I saw and conversed with this great man for the 
first time in the darkest hours of the military situation 
when the armies of the rebellion seemed more con- 
fident, defiant and aggressive than ever. 

"I had never before had an interview with a Presi- 
dent of the United States, and though I felt that I had 
something important to say, considering his exalted 
position and my lowly origin and the people whose 
cause I came to plead, I approached him with trep- 
idation as to how this great man might receive me; 
but one word and look from him banished all my fears 
and set me perfectly at ease. I have often said since 
that meeting that it was much easier to see and con- 
verse with a great man than it was with a small man. 

"On that occasion he said: 

" 'Douglass, you need not tell me who you are, Mr. 
Seward has told me all about you. ' 

"I then saw that there was no reason to tell him my 
personal story, however interesting it might be to 
myself or others, so I told him at once the object of 
my visit. It was to get some expression from him 
upon three points : 

"1. Equal pay to colored soldiers. 



184 STORIES OF THE WAR. 

"2. Their promotion when they had earned it on the 
battle-field. 

"3. Should they be taken prisoners and enslaved or 
hanged, as Jefferson Davis had threatened, an equal 
number of Confederate prisoners should be executed 
within our lines. 

"A declaration to that effect I thought would pre- 
vent the execution of the rebel threat. To all but the 
last President Lincoln assented. He argued, however, 
that neither equal pay nor promotion could be granted 
at once. He said that in view of existing prejudices 
it was a great step forward to employ colored troops 
at all ; that it was necessary to avoid everything that 
would offend this prejudice and increase opposition to 
the measure. 

"He detailed the steps by which white soldiers were 
reconciled to the employment of colored troops; how 
these were first employed as laborers; how it was 
thought they should not be armed or uniformed like 
white soldiers; how they should only be made to wear 
a peculiar uniform ; how they should be employed to 
hold forts and arsenals in sickly locations, and not 
enter the field like other soldiers. 

"With all these restrictions and limitations he easily 
made me see that much would be gained when the 
colored man loomed before the country as a full- 
fledged United States soldier to fight, flourish or fall in 
defense of the united republic. The great soul of 
Lincoln halted only when he came to the point of 
retaliation. 

"The thought of hanging men in cold blood, even 
though the rebels should murder a few of the colored 
prisoners, was a horror from which he shrank. 



STORIES OF THE WAR. 185 

" 'Oh, Douglass! I cannot do that. If I could get hold 
of the actual murderers of colored prisoners, I would 
retaliate; but to hang those who have no hand in such 
murders, I cannot. ' 

"The contemplation of such an act brought to his 
countenance such an expression of sadness and pity 
that it made it hard for me to press my point, though 
I told him it would tend to save rather than destroy 
life. He, however, insisted that this work of blood, 
once begun, would be hard to stop — that such violence 
would beget violence. He argued more like a disciple 
of Christ than a commander-in-chief of the army and 
navy of a warlike nation already involved in a terrible 
war. 

"How sad and strange the fate of this great and 
good man, the savior of his country, the embodiment 
of human charity, whose heart, though strong, was as 
tender as a heart of childhood; who always tempered 
justice with mercy; who sought to supplant the sword 
with counsel of reason, to suppress passion by kindness 
and moderation ; who had a sigh for every human 
grief and a tear for every human woe, should at last 
perish by the hand of a desperate assassin, against 
whom no thought of malice had ever entered his heart ! ' ' 



LINCOLN AND TAD. 

Amid the cheering of the men at Chancellorsville, 
one of the volunteers lustily called out to the Presi- 
dent, "Send along more greenbacks." Lincoln was 
greatly amused by the incident and explained to Tad 
that the men had not been paid. Tad thought for a 



186 STORIES OF THE WAR. 

moment, then said with great innocence, "Why didn't 
Governor Chase print some more greenbacks?" 



TAD THE COMMISSIONED OFFICER. 

Tad, having been sportively commissioned a lieuten- 
ant in the United States Army by Secretary Stanton, 
procured several muskets and drilled the men-servants 
of the house in the manual of arms without attracting 
the attention of his father. And one night, to his con- 
sternation, he put them all on duty, and relieved the 
regular sentries, who, seeing the lad in full uniform, 
or perhaps appreciating the joke, gladly went to their 
quarters. His brother objected; but Tad insisted 
upon his rights as an officer. The President laughed 
but declined to interfere, but when the lad had lost 
his little authority in his boyish sleep, the Commander- 
in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States 
went down and personally discharged the sentries his 
son had put on the post. 



MR. LINCOLN AS HISTORIAN. 

Jefferson Davis, it appears, insisted on being recog- 
nized as commander or President in the regular nego- 
tiation with the government. This Mr. Lincoln would 
not consent to. 

Mr. Hunter hereupon referred to the correspondence 
between King Charles the First and his Parliament as 
a precedent for a negotiation between a constitutional 
ruler and rebels. Mr. Lincoln's face then wore that 
indescribable expression which generally preceded his 
hardest hits, and he remarked: "Upon questions of 
history, I must refer you to Mr. Seward, for he is 



STORIES OF THE WAR. 187 

posted in such things, and I don't profess to be; but 
my only distinct recollection of the matter is, that 
Charles lost his head." 



THE PRESIDENT AND "FIGHTING JOE." 

General Joe Hooker, the fourth commander of the 
noble but unfortunate Army of the Potomac, was 
appointed to that position by President Lincoln, in 
January, 1863. General Scott, for some reason, dis- 
liked Hooker and would not appoint him. Hooker, 
after some months of discouraging waiting, decided to 
return to California, and called to pay his respects to 
Mr. Lincoln. He was introduced as Captain Hooker, 
and to the surprise of the President began the follow- 
ing speech: "Mr. President, my friend makes a 
mistake. I am not Captain Hooker, but was once 
Lieutenant-Colonel Hooker of the regular army. I 
was lately a farmer in California, but since the rebellion 
broke out I have been trying to get into service, but 
I find I am not wanted. 

' ' I am about to return home ; but before going, I was 
anxious to pay my respects to you, and express my 
wishes for your personal welfare and success in 
quelling this rebellion. And I want to say to you a 
word more. 

"I was at Bull Run the other day, Mr. President, 
and it is no vanity in me to say, I am a d — d sight 
better general than you had on the field. ' ' 

This was said, not in the tone of a braggart, but of 
a man who knew what he was talking about. Hooker 
did not return to California, but in a few weeks 
Captain Hooker was Brigadier- General Hooker, and 



i88 STORIES OF THE WAR. 

"Fighting- Joe" was regarded as one of the most 
vigorous and efficient Generals of the Union Army. 



MR. LINCOLN'S MILITARY TALENT. 

To Hooker on the 5th of June, 1863: He warns 
Hooker not to run any risk of being entangled on the 
Rappahannock "like an ox jumped half over a fence 
and liable to be torn by dogs, front and rear, without 
a fair chance to give one way or kick the other." On 
the 10th he warns Hooker not to go south of the 
Rappahannock upon Lee's moving north of it. "I 
think Lee's army and not Richmond is your true 
objective power. If he comes toward the upper 
Potomac, follow on his flank, and on the inside track, 
shortening your lines while he lengthens his. Fight 
him, too, when opportunity offers. If he stay where 
he is, fret him, and fret him." On the 14th again he 
says: "So far as we can make out here, the enemy 
have Milroy surrounded at Winchester, and Tyler at 
Martinsburg. If they could hold out for a few days, 
could you help them? If the head of Lee's army is at 
Martinsburg, and the tail of it on the flank road 
between Fredericksburg and Chancellorsvillc, the 
animal must be very slim somewhere; could you not 
break him?" 

WHY MR. LINCOLN HESITATED BEFORE SIGNING 
THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION. 

The roll containing the Emancipation Proclamation 
was taken to Mr. Lincoln at noon on the first day of 
January, 1863, by Secretary Seward and his son 
Frederick. As it lay unrolled before him, Mr. Lincoln 



STORIES OF THE WAR. 189 

took a pen, dipped it in the ink, moved his hand to the 
place for the signature, held it a moment, then 
removed his hand and dropped the pen. After a little 
hesitation he again took up the pen and went through 
the same movement as before. Mr. Lincoln then 
turned to Mr. Seward, and said : 

"I have been shaking hands since nine o'clock this 
morning, and my right arm is almost paralyzed. If 
my name ever goes into history it will be for this act, 
and my whole soul is in it. If my hand trembles 
when I sign the Proclamation, all who examine the 
document hereafter will say, 'He hesitated.' " 

He then turned to the table, took up the pen again, 
and slowly, firmly wrote "Abraham Lincoln," with 
which the whole world is now familiar. He then 
looked up, smiled, and said, "That will do!" 



"MAKING A FIZZLE ANYHOW." 

The President, in company with General Grant, was 
inspecting the Dutch Gap Canal at City Point. 

His opinion of the success of the enterprise he made 
known to General Grant in his usual manner. 

"Grant, do you know what this reminds me of? Out 

in Springfield, 111., there was a blacksmith named . 

One day, not having much to do, he took a piece of 
soft iron, and attempted to weld it into an agricultural 
implement, but discovered that the iron would not 
hold out; then he concluded it would make a claw 
hammer ; but having too much iron attempted to make 
an ax, but decided after working a while that there 
was not enough iron left. Finally, becoming dis- 



i 9 o STORIES OF THE WAR. 

gusted, he filled the forge full of coal and brought the 
iron to a white heat ; then with his tongs he lifted it 
from the bed of coals, and thrusting it into a tub of 
water near by, exclaimed with an oath, 'Well, if I 
can't make anything else of you, I will make a fizzle 
anyhow.' I was afraid that was about what we had 
done with the Dutch Gap Canal." 



A STORY ILLUSTRATING LINCOLN'S IMPATIENCE 
AT McCLELLAN'S SLOW MOVEMENTS. 

"On a certain occasion the President said to a friend 
that he was in great distress ; he had been to General 
McClellan's house and the General did not ask to see 
him ; and as he must talk to somebody he had sent 
for General Franklin and myself, to obtain our opinions 
as to the possibility of soon commencing operations 
with the Army of the Potomac. To use his own 
expression, if something was not done soon the bottom 
would fall out of the whole affair; and if General 
McClellan did not want to use the army, he would 
like to borrow it, provided he could see how it could 
be made to do something." 



LINCOLN'S SUMMING UP OF McCLELLAN. 

"If General McClellan does not want to use the 
army for some days, I should like to borrow it and see 
if it cannot be made to do something." 

Mr. Lincoln said, McClellan's tardiness reminded 
him of a man who knew a few law phrases but whose 
lawyer lacked aggressiveness. The man finally lost 



STORIES OF THE WAR. 191 

all patience and springing to his feet said: "Why 
don't you go at him with a fifa, a demurrer, a capias, 
a surrebutter, or a ne exeat, or something; or a 
nundam pactum or a non est?" 

Lincoln at another time said: "General McClellan is 
a pleasant and scholarly gentleman. 

"He is an admirable engineer, but he seems to have 
a special talent for a stationary engine. " 



ADVISES AN ANGRY OFFICER. 

An officer, having had some trouble with General 
Sherman, being very angry, presented himself before 
Mr. Lincoln, who was visiting the camp, and said, 
"Mr. President, I have a cause of grievance. This 
morning I went to Colonel Sherman and he threatened 
to shoot me. " "Threatened to shoot you?" said Mr. 
Lincoln. "Well, (in a stage whisper) if I were you 
and he threatens to shoot, I would not trust him, for 
I believe he would do it." 



LINCOLN'S LOVE OF SOLDIER HUMOR. 

Lincoln loved anything that savored of wit or humor 
among the soldiers in their deprivations and sufferings. 
He used to relate these two stories often to show, he 
said, that neither death nor danger could quench the 
grim humor of the American soldier: 

"A soldier of the Army of the Potomac was being 
carried to the rear of battle with both legs shot off, 
who, seeing a pie-woman hovering about, asked, 'Say, 
old lady, are them pies sewed or pegged?' 



i 9 2 STORIES OF THE WAR. 

"And there was another one of the soldiers at the 
battle of Chancellorsville, whose regiment, waiting to 
be called into the fight, was taking coffee. The hero 
of the story put to his lips a crockery mug which he 
had carried, with infinite care, through several 
campaigns. A stray bullet, just missing the drinker's 
head, dashed the mug into fragments and left only 
the handle on his finger. Turning his head in that 
direction, he scowled, 'Johnny, you can't do that 
again.' " 

THE PRESIDENT AND THE MONITOR. 

The President expressed his belief in the Monitor, 
to Captain Fox, the adviser of Captain Ericsson, who 
constructed the Monitor. "I am not prepared for 
disastrous results, why should I be? We have three 
of the most effective vessels in Hampton Roads, and 
any number of small craft that will hang on the stern 
of the Merrimac like small dogs on the haunches of a 
bear. They may not be able to tear her down, but 
they will interfere with the comfort of her voyage. 
Her trial trip will not be a pleasure trip, I am certain. 

"We have had a big share of bad luck already, but 
I do not believe the future has any such misfortunes 
in store for us as you anticipate." Said Captain Fox: 
"If the Merrimac does not sink our ships, who is to 
prevent her from dropping her anchor in the Potomac, 
where that steamer lies," pointing to a steamer at 
anchor below the long bridge, "and throwing her 
hundred-pound shells into this room, or battering 
down the walls of the Capitol?" 

"The Almighty, Captain," answered the President, 



STORIES OF THE WAR. 193 

excitedly, but without the least affectation. ' ' I expect 
set-backs, defeats ; we have had them and shall have 
them. They are common to all wars. But I have not the 
slightest fear of any result which shall fatally impair 
our military and naval strength, or give other powers 
any right to interfere in our quarrel. The destruction 
of the Capitol would do both. 

"I do not fear it, for this is God's fight, and He will 
win it in His own good time. He will take care that 
our enemies will not push us too far." 

"Speaking of iron-clads, " said the President, "you 
do not seem to take the little Monitor into account. I 
believe in the Monitor and her commander. If 
Captain Worden does not give a good account of the 
Monitor and of himself, I shall have made a mistake 
in following my judgment for the first time since I 
have been here, Captain. I have not made a mistake 
in following my clear judgment of men since this war 
began. I followed that judgment when I gave 
Worden the command of the Monitor. I would make 
the appointment over again to-day. The Monitor 
should be in Hampton Roads now. She left New 
York eight days ago." After the captain had again 
presented what he considered the possibilities of 
failure, the President replied, "No, no, Captain, I 
respect your judgment, as you have reason to know, 
but this time you are all wrong. 

"The Monitor was one of my inspirations; I believed 
in her firmly when that energetic contractor first 
showed me Ericsson's plans. Captain Ericsson's plain 
but rather enthusiastic demonstration, made my con- 
version permanent. It was called a floating battery 
then ; I called it a raft I caught some of the inventor's 



i 9 4 STORIES OF THE WAR. 

enthusiasm and it has been growing upon me. I 
thought then, and I am confident now, it is just what 
we want. I am sure that the Monitor is still afloat, 
and that she will yet give a good account of herself. 
Sometimes I think she may be the veritable sling with 
a stone that will yet smite the Merrimac Philistine in 
the forehead." 

Soon was the President's judgment verified, for the 
"Fight of the Monitor and Merrimac" changed all the 
conditions of naval warfare. 

After the victory was gained, the presiding Captain 
Fox and others went on board the Monitor, and 
Captain Worden was requested by the President to 
narrate the history of the encounter. 

Captain Worden did so in a modest manner, and 
apologized for not being able better to provide for 
his guests. The President smilingly responded : 
"Some uncharitable people say that old Bourbon is an 
indispensable element in the fighting qualities of some 
of our generals in the field, but, Captain, after the 
account that we have heard to-day, no one will say that 
any Dutch courage is needed on board the Monitor." 

"It never has been, sir," modestly observed the 
captain. 

Captain Fox then gave a description of what he saw 
of the engagement and described it as indescribably 
grand. Then, turning to the President, he continued, 
"Now, standing here on the deck of this battle-scarred 
vessel, the first genuine iron-clad — the victor in the 
first fight of iron-clads — let me make a confession, and 
perform an act of simple justice. 

"I never fully believed in armored vessels until I 
saw this battle. 



STORIES OF THE WAR. 195 

"I know all the facts which united to give us the 
Monitor. I withhold no credit from Captain Ericsson, 
her inventor, but I know that the country is principally 
indebted for the construction of the vessel to President 
Lincoln, and for the success of her trial to Captain 
Worden, her commander." 



THAT SAVAGE DOG. 

When Hood's army had been scattered into frag- 
ments, Lincoln, elated by the defeat of what had so 
long been a menacing force on the borders of Tenn- 
essee, was reminded by its collapse of the fate of a 
savage dog belonging to one of his neighbors in the 
frontier settlements in which he lived in his youth. 
"The dog," he said, "was the terror of the neighbor- 
hood, and its owner, a churlish and quarrelsome fellow, 
took pleasure in the brute's forcible attitude Finally, 
all ether means having failed to subdue the creature, a 
man loaded a lump of meat with a charge of powder, 
to which was attached a slow fuse ; this was dropped 
where the dreaded dog would find it, and the animal 
gulped down the tempting bit. There was a dull 
rumbling, a muffled explosion, and fragments of the 
dog were seen flying in every direction. The grieved 
owner, picking up the shattered remains of his cruel 
favorite, said: 'He was a good dog, but as a dog, his 
days of usefulness are over.' Hood's army was a 
good army," said Lincoln, by way of comment, "and 
we were all afraid of it, but as an army, its usefulness 
is gone." 



196 STORIES OF THE WAR. 

"HELP ME LET THIS HOG GO." 

The terrible butchery at the battle of Fredericks- 
burg - , made Lincoln almost broken-hearted. 

Governor Custer, of Pennsylvania, expressed his 
regrets that his description had so sadly affected the 
President. He remarked: "I would give all I possess 
to know how to rescue you from this terrible war." 
Then Mr. Lincoln's wonderful recuperative powers 
asserted themselves and this marvelous man was 
himself. 

Lincoln's whole aspect suddenly changed, and he 
relieved his mind by telling a story. 

"This reminds me, Governor," he said, "of an old 
farmer out in Illinois that I used to know. 

"He took it into his head to go into hog-raising. He 
sent out to Europe and imported the finest breed of 
hogs he could buy. 

"The prize hog was put in a pen, and the farmer's 
two mischievous boys, James and John, were told to 
be sure not to let it out. But James, the worst of 
the two, let the brute out the next day. The hog went 
straight for the boys, and drove John up a tree, then 
the hog went for the seat of James' trousers, and the 
only way the boy could save himself was by holding 
on to the hog's tail. 

"The hog would not give up his hunt, nor the boy 
his hold! After they had made a good many circles 
around the tree, the boy's courage began to give out, 
and he shotted to his brother, 'I say, John, come 
down, quick, and help me let go this hog!' 

"Now, Governor, that is exactly my case. I wish 
some one would come and help me to let the hog go," 




THE FRETTING QUESTIONS OF EVEN A GREAT WAR SEEMED TO PERISH 
UNTIL "TAD" HAD COMPLETED HIS ROMP. 



STORIES OF THE WAR. 199 

"GRANT'S WHISKY" THE RIGHT KIND. 

Just previous to the fall of Vicksburg a self-con- 
stituted committee, solicitous for the morals of our 
armies, took it upon themselves to visit the President 
and urge the removal of General Grant. 

In some surprise Mr. Lincoln inquired, "For what 
reason?" 

"Why," replied the spokesman, "he drinks too 
much whisky." 

"Ah!" rejoined Mr. Lincoln, dropping his lower lip, 
"by the way, gentlemen, can either of you tell me 
where General Grant procures his whisky? Because, 
if I can find out, I will send every general in the field 
a barrel of it ! " 



BURNSIDE SAFE! 



Burnside was shut up in Knoxville, Tennessee, for a 
time, and there was great solicitude all over the 
country on his account, as his communications with 
the North were temporarily cut off. One day Washing- 
ton was startled. The long silence concerning Burn- 
side's movements was broken by an urgent call from 
him for succor. Lincoln, relieved by the news that 
Burnside was safe, at least, said that he was reminded 
of a woman who lived in a forest clearing in Indiana, 
her cabin surrounded by hazel bushes, in which some 
of her numerous flock of children were continually 
being lost; when she heard a squall from one of these 
in the distance, although she knew that the child was 
in danger, perhaps frightened by a rattlesnake, she 
would say, "Thank God! there's one of my young 
ones that isn't lost." 



2oo STORIES OP THE WAR. 

LINCOLN AND LITTLE "TAD." 

"The day after the review of Burnside's division 
some photographers," says Mr. Carpenter, "came up 
to the White House to make some stereoscopic studies 
for me of the President's office. They requested a 
dark closet in which to develop the pictures, and with- 
out a thought that I was infringing upon anybody's 
rights, I took them to an unoccupied room of which 
little 'Tad' had taken possession a few days before, 
and with the aid of a couple of servants had fitted up a 
miniature theater, with stage, curtains, orchestra, 
stalls, parquette and all. Knowing that the use 
required would interfere with none of his arrange- 
ments, I led the way to this apartment. 

"Everything went on well, and one or two pictures 
had been taken, when suddenly there was an uproar. 
The operator came back to the office and said that 
'Tad' had taken great offense at the occupation of 
his room without his consent, and had locked the door, 
refusing all admission. 

"The chemicals had been taken inside, and there 
was no way of getting at them, he having carried off 
the key. In the midst of this conversation 'Tad' 
burst in, in a fearful passion. He laid all the blame 
upon me — said that I had no right to use his room, 
and the men should not go in even to get their things. 
He had locked the door and they should not go there 
again— 'they had no business in his room!' 

"Mr. Lincoln was sitting for a photograph, and was 
still in the chair. He said, very mildly, 'Tad, go and 
unlock the door.' Tad went off muttering into his 
mother's room, refusing to obey. I followed him into 



STORIES OF THE WAR. 201 

the passage, but no coaxing would pacify him. Upon 
my return to the President I found him still patiently 
in the chair, from which he had not risen. He said : 
'Has not the boy opened the door?' I replied that we 
could do nothing with him — he had gone off in a great 
pet. Mr. Lincoln's lips came together firmly, and 
then, suddenly rising, he strode across the passage 
with the air of one bent on punishment, and disap- 
peared in the domestic apartments. Directly he 
returned with the key to the theater, which he 
unlocked himself. 

" 'Tad,' said he, half apologetically, 'is a peculiar 
child. He was violently excited when I went to him. 
I said, "Tad, do you know that you are making your 
father a great deal of trouble?" He burst into tears, 
instantly giving me up the key.' " 



LET THE ELEPHANT ESCAPE. 

Mr. Dana relates the following: A certain Thomp- 
son had been giving the Government considerable 
trouble. Dana received information that Thompson 
was about to escape to Liverpool. 

Calling upon Stanton, Dana was referred to Mr. 
Lincoln. 

"The President was at the White House, business 
hours were over, Lincoln was washing his hands. 
'Hallo, Dana,' said he, as I opened the door, 'what is 
it now?' 'Well, sir,' I said, 'here is the Provost 
Marshal of Portland, who reports that Jacob Thomp- 
son is to be in town to-night, and inquires what orders 
we have to give.' 'What does Stanton say?' he asked. 
'Arrest him,' I replied. 'Well,' he continued, drawl- 



202 STORIES OF THE WAR. 

ing his words, 'I rather guess not. When you have 
an elephant on your hands, and he wants to run away, 
better let him run.' " 



FRIGHT A CURE FOR BOILS. 

"Blair," said the President to his Postmaster- 
General, "did you ever know that fright has sometimes 
proven a cure for boils?" "No, Mr. President, how 
is that?" 

"I'll tell you. Not long ago, when Colonel , 

with his cavalry, was at the front, and the Rebs were 
making things rather lively for us, the colonel wa9 
ordered out to a reconnoissance. He was troubled at 
the time with a big boil where it made horseback 
riding decidedly uncomfortable. He finally dis- 
mounted and ordered the troops forward without him. 
Soon he was startled by the rapid reports of pistols, 
and the helter-skelter approach of his troops in full 
retreat before a yelling rebel force. He forgot every- 
thing but the yells, sprang into his saddle, and made 
capital time over the fences and ditches till safe within 
the lines. 

"The pain from his boil was gone, and the boil too, 
and the colonel swore that there was no cure for boils 
so sure as fright from rebel yells." 



BRIGADIER GENERALS MORE PLENTIFUL 
THAN HORSES. 

When Pesident Lincoln heard of the rebel raid at 
Fairfax, in which a brigadier-general and a number of 
valuable horses were captured, he gravely observed: 



STORIES OF THE WAR. 203 

"Well, I am sorry for the horses." 

1 ' Sorry for the horses, Mr. President ! ' ' exclaimed the 
Secretary of War, raising his spectacles, and throwing 
himself back in his chair in astonishment. 

"Yes," replied Mr. Lincoln, "I can make a 
brigadier-general in five minutes, but it is not easy to 
replace a hundred and ten horses." 



"MASSA LINKUM" WORSHIPED BY 
THE NEGROES. 

In 1863, Colonel McKaye, of New York, with Robert 
Dale Owen and one or two other gentlemen, were 
associated as a committee to investigate the condition 
of the freedmen on the coast of North Carolina. 
Upon their return from Hilton Head they reported to 
the President, and in the course of the interview, 
Colonel McKaye related the following incident: 

He had been speaking of the ideas of power enter- 
tained by these people. He said they had an idea of 
God, as the Almighty, and they had realized in their 
former position the power of their masters. Up to 
the time of the arrival among them of the Union 
forces, they had no knowledge of any other power. 
Their masters fled upon the approach of our soldiers, 
and this gave the slaves a conception of a power greater 
than that exercised by them. This power they called 
"Massa Linkum. " 

Colonel McKaye said their place of worship was a 
large building which they called "the praise house" ; 
and the leader of the meeting, a venerable black man, 
was known as "the praise man." On a certain day, 
when there was quite a large gathering of the people, 



204 STORIES OP THE WAR. 

considerable confusion was created by different 
parsons attempting to tell who and what "Massa 
Linkum" was. In the midst of the excitement, the 
white-headed leader commanded silence. 

"Brederin," said he, "you don't know nosen' what 
you'se talkin' about. Now, you just listen to me. 
Massa Linkum, he eberywhar. He know eberyting." 
Then, solemnly looking up, he added, "He walk de 
earf like de Lord!" 

Colonel McKaye said that Mr. Lincoln seemed much 
affected by this account. He did not smile, as another 
man might have done, but got up from his chair and 
walked in silence two or three times across the floor. 
As he resumed his seat, he said, very impressively, 
"It is a momentous thing to be the instrument, under 
Providence, of the liberation of a race." 



THE COLORED PEOPLE OF RICHMOND 
HONOR LINCOLN. 

G. F. Shepley gives the following interesting 
reminiscence: 

"After Mr. Lincoln's interview with Judge Campbell, 
the President being about to return to the Wabash, I 
took him and Admiral Porter in my carriage. An 
immense concourse of colored people thronged the 
streets, accompanied and followed the carriage, calling 
upon the President with the wildest exclamations of 
gratitude and delight. 

"He was the Moses, the Messiah, to the slaves of 
the South. Hundreds of colored women tossed their 
hands high in the air and then bent down to the 
ground, weeping for joy. Some shouted songs of 



STORIES OF THE WAR. 205 

deliverance, and sang the old plantation refrains, 
which prophesied the coming of a deliverer from 
bondage. 'God bless you, Father Abraham!' went 
up from a thousand throats. 

"Those only who have seen the paroxysmal enthu- 
siasm of a religious meeting of slaves can form an 
adequate conception of the way in which tears and 
smiles, and shouts of the emancipated people evinced 
the frenzy of their gratitude to their deliverer. He 
looked at all attentively, with a face expressive only of 
a sort of pathetic wonder. 

"Occasionally its sadness would alternate with one 
of his peculiar smiles, and he would remark on the 
great proportion of those whose color indicated a mixed 
lineage from the white master and the black slave; 
and that reminded him of some little story of his life 
in Kentucky, which he would smilingly tell ; and then 
his face would relapse again into that sad expression 
which all will remember who saw him during the last 
few weeks of the Rebellion. Perhaps it was a presenti- 
ment of his impending fate. 

"I accompanied him to the ship, bade him farewell 
and left him, to see his face no more. Not long after, 
the bullet of the assassin arrested the beatings of one of 
the kindest hearts that ever throbbed in human bosom. 



THE BITER BIT. 

The Governor-General, with some of his principal 
officers, visited Lincoln in the summer of 1864. 

They had been very troublesome in harboring 
blockade runners, and they were said to have carried 
pn a large trade from their ports with the Confederates, 



2o6 STORIES OF THE WAR. 

Lincoln treated his guests with great courtesy. 
After a pleasant interview, the Governor, alluding to 
the coming Presidential election, said jokingly, but 
with a grain of sarcasm, "I understand, Mr. President, 
that everybody votes in this country. If we remain 
until November, can we vote?" 

"You remind me," replied the President, "of a 
countryman of yours, a green emigrant from Ireland. 
Pat arrived on election day, and perhaps was as eager 
as your Excellency to vote and to vote early, and late 
and often. 

"So, upon landing at Castle Garden, he hastened to 
the nearest voting place, and, as he approached, the 
judge who received the ballots inquired, 'Who do you 
want to vote for? On which side are 3'•ou? , Poor Pat 
was embarrassed, he did not know who were the 
candidates. He stopped, scratched his head, then, 
with the readiness of his countrymen, he said: 

" 'I am foment the Government, anyhow. Tell me, 
if your Honor plases, which is the rebellion side, and 
I'll tell you how I want to vote. In ould Ireland, I 
was always on the rebellion side, and, by Saint Patrick, 
I'll do that same in America.' Your Excellency," said 
Mr. Lincoln, "would, I should think, not be at all at 
a loss on which side to vote ! ' ' 



LINCOLN'S TENDERNESS. 



When Lincoln was on his way to the National 
Cemetery at Gettysburg, an old gentleman told him 
that his only son fell on Little Round Top at Gettys- 
burg, and he was going to look at the spot. 



STORIES OF THE WAR. 207 

Mr. Lincoln replied: "You have been called on to 
make a terrible sacrifice for the Union, and a visit to 
that spot, I fear, will open your wounds afresh. 

"But, oh, my dear sir, if we had reached the end of 
such sacrifices, and had nothing left for us to do but 
to place garlands on the graves of those who have 
already fallen, we could give thanks even amidst our 
tears ; but when I think of the sacrifices of life yet to 
be offered, and the hearts and homes yet to be made 
desolate before this dreadful war is over, my heart is 
ke lead within me, and I feel at times like hiding in 
deep darkness. " 

At one of the stopping places of the train, a very 
beautiful little child, having a bunch of rosebuds in 
her hand, was lifted up to an open window of the 
President's car. "Floweth for the President." The 
President stepped to the window, took the rosebuds, 
bent down and kissed the child, saying: "You are a 
sweet little rosebud yourself. I hope your life will 
open into perpetual beauty and goodness." 



HOW LINCOLN PACIFIED DISAPPOINTED OFFICE 
SEEKERS. 

A gentleman states in a Chicago journal: "In the 
winter of 1864, after serving three years in the Union 
Army, and being honorably discharged, I made 
application for the post sutlership at Point Lookout. 
My father being interested, we made application to 
Mr. Stanton, then Secretary of War. 

"We obtained an audience, and were ushered into 
the presence of the most pompous man I ever met. 
As I entered he waved his hand for me to stop at a 



208 STORIES OF THE WAR. 

given distance from him, and then put these questions, 
viz. : 

" 'Did you serve three years in the army?' 

44 'I did, sir.' 

44 4 Were you honorably discharged?' 

44 4 I was, sir.' 

44 4 Let me see your discharge.' 

44 I gave it to him. He looked it over, then said: 

44 4 Were you ever wounded?' 

44 I told him yes, at the battle of Williamsburg, May 
5, 1861. 

44 He then said: 4 I think we can give this position 
to a soldier who has lost an arm or leg, he being more 
deserving' ; and he then said I looked hearty and 
healthy enough to serve three years more. He would 
not give me a chance to argue my case. 

44 The audience was at an end. He waved his hand 
to me. I was then dismissed from the august presence 
of the Honorable Secretary of War. 

44 My father was waiting for me in the hallway, who 
saw by my countenance that I was not successful. I 
said to my father: 

41 'Let us go over to Mr. Lincoln; he may give us 
more satisfaction.' 

"He said it would do me no good, but we went 
over. Mr. Lincoln's reception room was full of ladies 
and gentlemen when we entered, and the scene was 
one I shall never forget. 

44 On her knees was a woman in the agonies of 
despair, with tears rolling down her cheeks, imploring 
for the life of her son, who had deserted and had been 
condemned to be shot. I heard Mr. Lincoln say: 

" 'Madam, do not act in this way, it is agony to me; 



STORIES OF THE WAR. 209 

I would pardon your son if it was in my power, but 
there must be an example made or I will have no army. ' 

"At this speech the woman fainted. Lincoln 
motioned to his attendant, who picked the woman up 
and carried her out. All in the room were in tears. 

"But now, changing the scene from the sublime to 
the ridiculous, the next applicant for favor was a big, 
buxom Irish woman, who stood before the President, 
with arms akimbo, saying : 

" 'Mr. Lincoln, can't I sell apples on the railroad?' 

"Lincoln said: 'Certainly, madam, you can sell all 
you wish.' 

"But she said: 'You must give me a pass, or the 
soldiers will not let me.' 

"Lincoln then wrote a few lines and gave it to her, 
who said: 

" 'Thank you, sir; God bless you.' 

"This shows how quick and clear were all this man's 
decisions. 

"I stood and watched him for two hours, and he 
dismissed each case as quickly as the above, with 
satisfaction to all. 

"My turn soon came. Lincoln turned to my father 
and said : 

" 'Now, gentlemen, be pleased to be as quick as 
possible with your business, as it is growing late. ' 

"My father then stepped up to Lincoln and intro- 
duced me to him. Lincoln then said: 

" 'Take a seat, gentlemen, and state your business 
as quickly as possible. ' 

"There was but one chair by Lincoln, so he motioned 
my father to sit, while I stood. My father stated the 
business to him as stated above. He then said; 



aio STORIES OF THE WAR. 

" 'Have you seen Mr. Stanton?' 

"We told him yes, that he had refused. He (Mr. 
Lincoln) then said: 

41 'Gentlemen, this is Mr. Stanton's business; I can- 
not interfere with him ; he attends to all these matters 
and I am sorry I cannot help you.' 

"He saw that we were disappointed, and did his best 
to revive our spirits. He succeeded well with my 
father, who was a Lincoln man, and who was a staunch 
Republican. 

"Mr. Lincoln then said: 

" 'Now, gentlemen, I will tell you what it is; I have 
thousands of applications like this every day, but we 
cannot satisfy all for this reason, that these positions 
are like office seekers — there are too many pigs for 
the tits. ' 

"The ladies who were listening to the conversation 
placed their handkerchiefs to their faces and turned 
away. But the joke of Old Abe put us all in a good 
humor. We then left the presence of the greatest and 
most just man who ever lived to fill the Presidential 
chair." 



LINCOLN'S GLIMPSE OF WAR. 

When Lincoln was in the White House he told this 
story : 

The only time he ever saw blood in this campaign, 
was one morning when, marching up a little valley 
that makes into the Rock River bottom, to reinforce a 
squad of outposts that were thought to be in danger, 
they came upon the tent occupied by the other party 
just at sunrise. The men had neglected to place any 



STORIES OF THE WAR. 211 

guard at night, and had been slaughtered in their sleep. 
As the reinforcing party came up the slope on which 
the camp had been made, Lincoln saw them all lying 
with their heads towards the rising sun, and the round 
red spot that marked where they had been scalped 
gleamed more redly yet in the ruddy light of the sun. 
This scene years afterwards he recalled with a shudder. 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND PASSES 
TO RICHMOND. 

A gentleman called upon President Lincoln before 
the fall of Richmond and solicited a pass for that 
place. "I should be very happy to oblige you," said 
the President, "if my passes were respected; but the 
fact is, I have, within the past two years, given passes 
to two hundred and fifty thousand men to go to 
Richmond and not one has got theie yet. " 



THE SON OF LINCOLN DISPLAYS A REBEL FLAG. 

"One of the prettiest incidents in the closing days 
of the Civil War occurred when the troops 'marching 
home again* passed in grand form, if with well-worn 
uniforms and tattered bunting, before the White 
House," says Harper's Young People. 

"Naturally, an immense crowd had assembled on the 
streets, the lawns, porches, balconies, and windows, 
even those of the executive mansion itself being 
crowded to excess. A central figure was that of the 
President, Abraham Lincoln, who, with bared head, 
unfurled and waved our nation's flag in the midst of 
lusty cheers. 

"But suddenly there was an unexpected sight. 



212 



STORIES OF THE WAR. 



"A small boy leaned forward and sent streaming to 
the air the banner of the boys in gray. It was an old 
flag which had been captured from the Confederates, 
and which the urchin, the President's second son, Tad, 
had obtained possession of and considered an additional 
triumph to unfurl on this all-important day. 

"Vainly did the servant who had followed him to the 
window plead with him to desist. No, Master Tad, 
Pet of the White House, was not to be prevented from 
adding to the loyal demonstration of the hour. 

"To his surprise, however, the crowd viewed it 
differently. Had it floated from any other window in 
the capital that day, no doubt it would have been the 
target of contempt and abuse; but when the Presi- 
dent, understanding what had happened, turned, with 
a smile on his grand, plain face, and showed his 
approval by a gesture and expression, cheer after cheer 
rent the air. 

"It was, surely enough, the expression of peace and 
good-will which, of all our commanders, none was 
better pleased to promote than our commander-in- 
chief." 



LINCOLN FULFILLS HIS VOW. 

The following incident, remarkable for its significant 
facts, is related by Mr. Carpenter, the artist: 

"Mr. Chase," said Mr. Carpenter, "told me that at 
the Cabinet meeting immediately after the battle of 
Antietam and just prior to the issue of the Proclama- 
tion, the President entered upon the business before 
them, saying: 

" 'The time for the annunciation of the emancipa- 



STORIES OF THE WAR. 213 

tion proclamation could be no longer delayed. Public 
sentiment would sustain it — many of his warmest 
friends and supporters demanded it — and he had 
promised his God he would do it!' 

"The last part of this was uttered in a low tone, and 
appeared to be heard by no one but Secretary Chase, 
who was sitting near him. He asked the President if 
he correctly understood him. Mr. Lincoln replied : 

" ' I made a solemn vow before God that if General 
Lee was driven back from Pennsylvania, I would crown 
the result by the Declaration of freedom to the slaves. ' 

"In February, 1865, a few days after the constitu- 
tional amendment, I went to Washington and was 
received by Mr. Lincoln with the kindness and famil- 
iarity which had characterized our previous intercourse. 

"I said to him at this time that I was very proud 
to have been the artist to have first conceived the 
design of painting a picture commemorative of the 
Act of the Emancipation ; that subsequent occurrences 
had only confirmed my first judgment of that act as 
the most sublime moral event in our history. 

" 'Yes,' said he — and never do I remember to have 
noticed in him more earnestness of expression or 
manner — 'as affairs have turned, it is the central act 
of my administration, and the great event of the 
nineteenth century.' " 



"LET JEFF. ESCAPE, I DON'T WANT HIM." 

When Grant saw that Lee must soon capitulate, 
Grant asked the President whether he should try to 
capture Jeff. Davis, or let him<escape from the country 
if he would. The President said : 



2i 4 STORIES OF THE WAR. 

"About that, I told him the story of an Irishman, 
who had the pledge of Father Matthew. He became 
terribly thirsty, and applied to the bartender for a 
lemonade, and while it was being prepared he 
whispered to him, 'And couldn't ye put a little brandy 
in it all unbeknown to myself?' I told Grant if he 
could let Jeff. Davis escape all unbeknown to him- 
self, to let him go, I didn't want him." 



THE COLORED PEOPLE'S NEW YEAR'S RECEPTION. 

The Presidential reception on New Year's day, 1865, 
was the occasion of a remarkable spectacle for Wash- 
ington, in the appearance of the colored people at the 
White House. They waited around until the crowd 
of white visitors diminished, when they made bold to 
enter the hall. Some of them were richly dressed, 
while others wore the garb of poverty; but alike 
intent on seeing the man who had set their nation 
free, they pressed forward, though with hesitation, 
into the presence of the President. 

Says an eye-witness: "For nearly two hours, Mr. 
Lincoln had been shaking hands with the 'sovereigns' 
and had become excessively weary and his grasp 
became languid; but here his nerves rallied at the 
unwonted sight, and he welcomed this motley crowd 
with a heartiness that made them wild with exceeding 
joy. They laughed and wept, and wept and laughed 
— exclaiming through their blinding tears, 'God bless 
you! God bless Abraham Lincoln! God bless Massa 
Linkum!' " 



STORIES OP THE WAR. 217 

DANGERS OF ASSASSINATION. 

The President said philosophically, "I long ago made 
tip my mind that if anybody wants to kill me, he will 
do it. Besides, in this case, it seems to me, the man 
who would succeed me, would be just as objectionable 
to my enemies — if I have any. ' ' 

One dark night, as he was going out with a 
friend, he took along a heavy cane, remarking 
good-naturedly: "'Mother' (Mrs. Lincoln) has 
got a notion into her head that I shall be assassin- 
ated, and to please her I take a cane when I go 
over to the War Department at night — when I don't 
forget it." 

Mr. Nichols relates this thrilling incident: "One 
night I was doing sentinel duty, at the entrance to the 
Soldier's Home. This was about the middle of 
August, 1864. About eleven o'clock I heard a rifle 
shot, in the direction of the city, and shortly after- 
wards I heard approaching hoof beats. In two or three 
minutes a horse came dashing up. I recognized the 
belated President. The President was bareheaded. 
The President simply thought that his horse had taken 
fright at the discharge of the firearms. 

"On going back to the place where the shot had 
been heard, we found the President's hat. It was a 
plain silk hat, and upon examination we discovered 
a bullet hole through the crown. 

"The next day, upon receiving the hat, the Pres- 
ident remarked that it was made by some foolish 
marksman, and was not intended for him; but 
added, that he wished nothing said about the 
matter." 



218 STORIES OF THE WAR. 

INCIDENT IN LINCOLN'S LAST SPEECH. 

Edward, the conservative but dignified butler of the 
White House, was seen struggling with Tad and trying 
to drag him back from the window from which was 
waving a Confederate flag captured in some fight and 
given to the boy. Edward conquered and Tad, rush- 
ing to find his father, met him coming forward to 
make, as it proved, his last speech. 

The speech began with these words, "We meet this 
evening, not in sorrow, but in gladness of heart." 
Having his speech written in loose leaves, and being 
compelled to hold a candle in the other hand, he would 
let the loose leaves drop to the floor one by one. Tad 
picked them up as they fell, and impatiently called for 
more as they fell from his father's hand. 



LINCOLN'S LAST AFTERNOON. 

During the afternoon the President signed a pardon 
for a soldier sentenced to be shot for desertion, 
remarking as he did so, "Well, I think the boy can do 
us more good above ground than under ground." 

He also approved an application for the discharge 
on taking the oath of allegiance, of a rebel prisoner, 
in whose petition he wrote, "Let it be done." 

This act of mercy was his last official order. 



Miscellaneous Stories 
and Incidents. 



SONG COMPOSED BY ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

Read in honor of his sister's wedding, and sung at 
that time by the Lincoln family : 

ADAM AND EVE'S WEDDING SONG. 

When Adam was created, 

He dwelt in Eden's shade, 
As Moses has recorded, 

And soon a bride was made. 

Ten thousand times ten thousand 
Of creatures swarmed around 

Before a bride was formed, 
And yet no mate was found. 

The Lord then was not willing 

That man should be alone, 
And caused a sleep upon him, 

And from him took a bone. 

And closed the flesh instead thereof, 
And then he took the same 

219 



220 STORIES AND INCIDENTS. 

And of it made a woman, 
And brought her to the man. 

Then Adam he rejoiced 
To see his loving bride, 

A part of his own body, 
The product of his side. 

The woman was not taken 
From Adam's feet, we see, 

So he must not abuse her, 
The meaning seems to be. 

The woman was not taken 
From Adam's head, we know, 

To show she must not rule him — 
'Tis evidently so. 

The woman, she was taken 
From under Adam's arm, 

So she must be protected 
From injuries and harm. 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LINCOLN IN A SINGLE 
PARAGRAPH. 

The compiler of the "Dictionary of Congress" states 
that, while preparing the work for publication in 1858, 
he sent to Mr. Lincoln the usual request for a sketch 
of his life, and received the following reply: 

"Born February 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Ky. 
Education defective. Profession, a lawyer. Have 



STORIES AND INCIDENTS. 221 

been a Captain of Volunteers in Black Hawk War. 
Postmaster at a very small office. Four times a mem- 
ber of the Illinois Legislature, and was a member of 
the Lower House of Congress." 



DEATH OF LINCOLN'S MOTHER. 

"A great man," says J. G. Holland, "never drew his 
infant life from a purer or more womanly bosom than 
her own ; and Mr. Lincoln always looked back to her 
with unspeakable affection. Long after her sensitive 
heart and weary hand had crumbled into dust, and had 
climbed to life again in forest flowers, he said to a 
friend, with tears in his eyes: 'All that I am, or hope 
to be, I owe to my angel mother — blessings on her 
memory!' " She was five feet and five inches high, a 
slender, a pale, sad, and sensitive woman, with much 
in her nature that was truly heroic, and much that 
shrank from the rude life around her. 

Her death occurred in 18 18, scarcely two years from 
her removal from Kentucky to Indiana, and when 
Abraham was in his tenth year. They laid her to rest 
under the trees near her cabin home, and, sitting on 
her grave, the little boy wept his irreparable loss. 



LINCOLN'S RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 

Abraham Lincoln, says David P. Thompson, had the 
good fortune to be trained by a godly mother and 
step-mother. The two books which made the most 
impression on his character were the Bible and Weem's 
' ' Life of Washington. ' ' The former he read with such 
diligence that he knew it almost by heart, and the 



222 STORIES AND INCIDENTS. 

words of Scripture became so much a part of his nature 
that he rarely made a speech or wrote a paper of any 
length without quoting its language or teachings. 

One of Mr. Lincoln's notable religious utterances 
was his reply to a deputation of colored people at 
Baltimore who presented him a Bible. He said: "In 
regard to the great book, I have only to say it is the 
best gift which God has ever given man. All the good 
from the Savior of the world is communicated to us 
through this book. But for this book we could not 
know right from wrong. All those things desirable to 
man are contained in it." 

Colonel Rusling overheard the following conversa- 
tion between President Lincoln and General Sickles, 
just after the victory of Gettysburg: "The fact is, 
General," said the President, "in the stress and pinch 
of the campaign there, I went to my room, and got 
down on my knees and prayed God Almighty for vic- 
tory at Gettysburg. I told Him that this was His 
country, and the war was His war, but that we really 
couldn't stand another Fredericksburg or Chancellors- 
ville. And then and there I made a solemn vow with 
my Maker that if He would stand by you, boys, at 
Gettysburg, I would stand by Him. And He did, and 
I will! And after this I felt that God Almighty had 
taken the whole thing into His hands. " Mr. Lincoln 
said all this with great solemnity. 



CONCERNING MR. LINCOLN'S RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 

The Rev. Mr. Willets, of Hrooklyn, gives an account 
of a conversation with Mr. Lincoln, on the part of a 
lady of his acquaintance connected with the "Christian 



STORIES AND INCIDENTS. 223 

Commission," who, in the prosecution of her duties, 
had several interviews with him. 

The President, it seemed, had been much impressed 
with the devotion and earnestness of purpose mani- 
fested by the lady, and on one occasion, after she had 
discharged the object of her visit, he said to her: 

"Mrs. , I have formed a high opinion of your 

Christian character, and now, as we are alone, I have 
a mind to ask you to give me in brief your idea of 
what constitutes a true religious experience. ' ' 

The lady replied at some length, stating that, in her 
judgment, it consisted of a conviction of one's own 
sinfulness and weakness, and a personal need of the 
Savior for strength and support; that views of mere 
doctrine might and would differ, but when one was 
really brought to feel his need of divine help, and to 
seek the aid of the Holy Spirit for strength and guid- 
ance, it was satisfactory evidence of his having been 
born again. This was the substance of her reply. 

When she had concluded Mr. Lincoln was very 
thoughtful for a few moments. He at length said, 
very earnestly: "If what you have told me is really a 
correct view of this great subject, I think I can say 
with sincerity that I hope I am a Christian. I had 
lived," he continued, "until my boy Willie died with- 
out fully realizing these things. That blow over- 
whelmed me. It showed me my weakness as I had 
never felt it before, and if I can take what you have 
stated as a test, I think I can safely say that I know 
something of that change of which you speak ; and I 
will further add, that it has been my intention for 
some time, at a suitable opportunity, to make a public 
religious profession." 



224 STORIES AND INCIDENTS. 

LINCOLN'S RELIGION. 

He once remarked to a friend that his religion was 
like that of an old man named Glenn, in Indiana, 
whom he heard speak at a church meeting, and who 
said, "When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I 
feel bad; and that's my religion." 

Mrs. Lincoln herself has said that Mr. Lincoln had 
no faith — no faith, in the usual acceptance of those 
words. "He never joined a church; but still, as I 
believe, he was a religious man by nature. He first 
seemed to think about the subject when our boy Willie 
died, and then more than ever about the time he went 
to Gettysburg; but it was a kind of poetry in his 
nature, and he never was a technical Christian." 



LINCOLN'S DEFINITION OF BIOGRAPHY. 

Lincoln had been reading a few pages of the life of 
Edmund Burke, when, throwing it on the table, he 
exclaimed, "No, sir, I've read enough of it. It's like 
all the others. Biographies as generally written are 
not only misleading, but false. 

"The author of that Life of Burke makes a wonder- 
ful hero out of his subject. He magnifies his perfec- 
tions, and suppresses his imperfections. He is so 
faithful in his zeal, and so lavish in his praise of his 
every act, that one is almost driven to believe that 
Burke never made a mistake or failure in his life." 

He lapsed into a brown study, but presently broke 
out again: "Billy, I've wondered why book publishers 
and merchants don't have blank biographies on their 
shelves, always ready for an emergency; so that if a 



STORIES AND INCIDENTS. 225 

man happens to die, his heirs or his friends, if they 
wish to perpetuate his memory, can purchase one 
already written, but with blanks. These blanks they 
can fill up at their pleasure with rosy sentences full of 
high-sounding praise. In most instances they com- 
memorate a lie, and cheat posterity out of the truth." 
This emphatic avowal of sentiment from Mr. Lin- 
coln not only fixes his estimate of ordinary biography, 
but was his vindication in advance, when assailed for 
telling the truth. 



LINCOLN'S FAVORITE POEM. 
oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud? 

"The evening of March 22d, 1864," says F. B. Car- 
penter, "was a most interesting one to me. I was 
with the President alone in his office for several hours. 
Busy with pen and papers when I went in, he presently 
threw them aside and commenced talking to me of 
Shakespeare, of whom he was very fond. Little 
'Tad,' his son, coming in, he sent to the library for a 
copy of the plays, and then read to me several of his 
favorite passages. Relapsing into a sadder strain, he 
laid the book aside, and, leaning back in his chair, 
said: 

" 'There is a poem which has been a great favorite 
with me for years, which was first shown to me when 
a young man by a friend, and which I afterward saw 
and cut from a newspaper and learned by heart. I 
would,' he continued, 'give a great deal to know who 
wrote it, but I have never been able to ascertain.' 
Then, half-closing his eyes, he repeated the verses to 
me, as follows; 



226 STORIES AND INCIDENTS. 

"Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud? — 
Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud, 
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave, 
He passeth from life to his rest in the grave. 

"The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade, 
Be scattered around, and together be laid ; 
And the young and the old, and the low and the high, 
Shall moulder to dust, and together shall lie. 

"The infant a mother attended and loved; 
The mother, that infant's affection who proved, 
The husband, that mother and infant who blessed — 
Each, all, are away to their dwellings of rest. 

"The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose 

eye, 
Shone beauty and pleasure — her triumphs are by; 
And the memory of those who loved her and praised, 
Are alike from the minds of the living erased. 

"The hand of the king, that the sceptre hath borne, 
The brow of the priest, that the mitre hath worn, 
The eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave, 
Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave. 

"The peasant, whose lot was to sow and to reap, 

The herdsman, who climbed with his goats up the 

steep, 
The beggar, who wandered in search of his bread, 
Have faded away like the grass that we tread. 



STORIES AND INCIDENTS. 227 

"The saint, who enjoyed the communion of heaven, 
The sinner, who dared to remain unforgiven, 
The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just, 
Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust. 

"So the multitude goes — like the flower or the weed, 
That withers away to let others succeed; 
So the multitude comes — even those we behold, 
To repeat every tale that has often been told: 

"For we are the same our fathers have been; 
We see the same sights our fathers have seen ; 
We drink the same stream, we view the same sun, 
And run the same course our fathers have run. 

"The thoughts we are thinking, our fathers would 

think ; 
From the death we are shrinking, our fathers would 

shrink ; 
To the life we are clinging, they also would cling — 
But it speeds from us all like a bird on the wing. 

"They loved — but the story we cannot unfold; 
They scorned — but the heart of the haughty is cold; 
They grieved — but no wail from their slumber will 

come ; 
They joyed — but the tongue of their gladness is dumb. 

"They died — aye, they died — and we things that are 

now, 
That walk on the turf that lies o'er their brow, 
And make in their dwellings a transient abode, 
Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road. 



228 STORIES AND INCIDENTS. 

"Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain, 
Are mingled together in sunshine and rain ; 
And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge, 
Still follow each other, like surge upon surge. 

" 'Tis the wink of an eye, — 'tis the draught of a 

breath ; 
From the blossom of health to the paleness of death, 
From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud: — 
Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?" 

(This poem was written by Wm. Knox, a Scotch- 
man.) 



HENRY J. RAYMOND'S REMINISCENCES OF LINCOLN. 
HIS HUMOR, SHREWDNESS AND SENTIMENT. 

It has been well said by a profound critic of Shakes- 
peare, and it occurs to me as very appropriate in this 
connection, that "the spirit which held the woe of Lear 
and the tragedy of Hamlet would have broken had it 
not also had the humor of the Merry Wives of Windsor 
and the merriment of the Midsummer Night's Dream. " 
This is as true of Mr. Lincoln as it was of Shakespeare. 
The capacity to tell and enjoy a good anecdote no 
doubt prolonged his life. I have often heard this 
asserted by one of his most intimate friends. And the 
public impression of his fecundity in this respect was 
not exaggerated. Mr. Reecher once observed to me 
of his own wealth of illustration, that he "thought in 
figures, " or, in other words, that an argument habitu- 



STORIES AND INCIDENTS. 229 

ally took on that form in his mind. This was pre- 
eminently true of Mr. Lincoln. The "points" of his 
argument were driven home in this way as they could 
be in no other. In the social circle this characteristic 
had full play. I never knew him to sit down with a 
friend for a five minutes' chat, without being 
"reminded" of one or more incidents about somebody 
alluded to in the course of the conversation. In a 
coiner of his desk he kept a copy of the latest humor- 
ous work; and it was frequently his habit, when 
greatly fatigued, annoyed, or depressed, to take this 
up and read a chapter, with great relief. 

The Saturday evening before he left Washington to 
go to the front, just previous to the capture of Rich- 
mond, I was with him from seven o'clock till nearly 
twelve. It had been one of his most trying days. The 
pressure of office-seekers was greater at this juncture 
than I ever knew it to be, and he was almost worn out. 
Among the callers that evening was a party composed 
of two senators, a representative, an ex-lieutenant- 
governor of a Western State, and several private 
citizens. They had business of great importance, 
involving the necessity of the President's examination 
of voluminous documents. Pushing everything aside, 
he said to one of the party: 

"Have you seen the Nasby papers?" 

"No, I have not," was the reply; "who is Nasby?" 

"There is a chap out in Ohio," returned the Presi- 
dent, "who has been writing a series of letters in the 
newspapers over the signature of Petroleum V. Nasby. 
Some one sent me a pamphlet collection of them the 
other day. I am going to write to 'Petroleum' to come 
down here, and I intend to tell him if he will com- 



2 3 o STORIES AND INCIDENTS. 

municate his talent to me, I will swap places with 
him!" 

Thereupon he arose, went to a drawer in his desk, 
and, taking out the "Letters," sat down and read one 
to the company, finding in their enjoyment of it the 
temporary excitement and relief which another man 
would have found in a glass of wine. The instant he 
had ceased, the book was thrown aside, his countenance 
relapsed into its habitual serious expression, and the 
business was entered upon with the utmost earnest- 
ness. 

Just here, I may say with propriety, and I feel that 
it is due to Mr. Lincoln's memory to state, that, dur- 
ing the entire period of my stay in Washington, after 
witnessing his intercourse with almost all classes of 
people, including governors, senators, members of Con- 
gress, officers of the army, and familiar friends, I can- 
not recollect to have ever heard him relate a 
circumstance to any one of them all that would have 
been out of place uttered in a ladies' drawing-room! 
I am aware that a different impression prevails, 
founded, it may be, in some instances upon facts; but 
where there is one fact of the kind I am persuaded 
that there are forty falsehoods, at least. At any rate, 
what I have stated is voluntary testimony, from a 
standpoint, I submit, entitled to respectful considera- 
tion. 

Among his stories freshest in my mind, one which 
he related to me shortly after its occurrence belongs 
to the history of the famous interview on board the 
River Queen, at Hampton Roads, between himself 
and Secretary Seward, and the rebel Peace Commis- 
sioners. It was reported at the time that the President 



STORIES AND INCIDENTS. 231 

told a "little story" on that occasion, and the inquiry 
went around among the newspapers, "What was it?" 
The New York Herald published what purported to be 
a version of it, but the "point" was entirely lost, and 
it attracted no attention. Being in Washington a few 
days subsequent to the interview with the Commis- 
sioners (my previous sojourn there having terminated 
about the first of last August), I asked Mr. Lincoln, 
one day, if it was true that he told Stephens, Hunter, 
and Campbell a story. "Why, yes," he replied, mani- 
festing some surprise, "but has it leaked out? I was 
in hopes nothing would be said about it, lest some 
oversensitive people should imagine there was a 
degree of levity in the intercourse between us." He 
then went on to relate the circumstances which called 
it out. 

"You see," said he, "we had reached and were dis- 
cussing the slavery question. Mr. Hunter said, sub- 
stantially, that the slaves, always accustomed to an 
overseer, and to work upon compulsion, suddenly 
freed, as they would be if the South should consent to 
peace on the basis of the 'Emancipation Proclama- 
tion,' would precipitate not only themselves, but the 
entire Southern society, into irremediable ruin. No 
work would be done, nothing would be cultivated, and 
both blacks and whites would starve!" 

Said the President: "I waited for Seward to answer 
that argument, but as he was silent, I at length said : 
'Mr. Hunter, you ought to know a great deal better 
about this argument than I, for you have always lived 
under the slave system. I can only say, in reply to 
your statement of the case, that it reminds me of a 
man out in Illinois, by the name of Case, who under- 



232 STORIES AND INCIDENTS. 

took, a few years ago, to raise a very large herd of 
hogs. It was a great trouble to feed them, and how to 
get around this was a puzzle to him. At length he hit 
on the plan of planting an immense field of potatoes, 
and, when they were sufficiently grown,' he turned the 
whole herd into the field, and let them have full swing, 
thus saving not only the labor of feeding the hogs, but 
also that of digging the potatoes! Charmed with his 
sagacity, he stood one day leaning against the fence, 
counting his hogs, when a neighbor came along. 
"Well, well," said he; "Mr. Case, this is all very fine. 
Your hogs are doing very well just now, but you know 
out here in Illinois the frost comes early, and the 
ground freezes for a foot deep. Then what are you 
going to do?" This was a view of the matter which 
Mr. Case had not taken into account. Butchering-time 
for hogs was 'way on in December or January! He 
scratched his head, and at length stammered, "Well, 
it may come pretty hard on their snouts, but I don't 
see but that it will be 'root, hog, or die' !" ' " 



IMPORTANT LETTER FROM J. WILKES BOOTH. 

His original purpose was to take Mr. Lincoln prisoner. — His 
reasons for his action. 

{From the Philadelphia Press, April ig.) 

We have just received the following letter, written 
by John Wilkes Booth, and placed by him in the hands 
of his brother-in-law, J. S. Clark. It was written by 
him in November last, and left with J. S. Clark in a 
Bealed envelope, and addressed to himself in his own 



STORIES AND INCIDENTS. 233 

handwriting. In the same envelope were some United 
States bonds and oil stocks. This letter was opened 
by Mr. Clark for the first time on Monday last, and 
immediately handed by him to Marshall Milward, who 
has kindly placed it in our hands. Most unmistakably 
it proves that he must for many months have contem- 
plated seizing the person of the late President. It is, 
however, doubtful whether he imagined the black 
deed which has plunged the nation into the deepest 
gloom, and at the same time awakened it to a just and 
righteous indignation : 

, , 1864. 



My Dear Sir : You may use this as you think best. 
But as some may wish to know when, who, and why, 
and as I do not know how to direct it, I give it (in the 
words of your master) : 

"to whom it may concern." 

Right or wrong, God judge me, not man. For be 
my motive good or bad, of one thing I am sure, the 
lasting condemnation of the North. 

I love peace more than life. Have loved the Union 
beyond expression. For four years I have waited, 
hoped, and prayed for the dark clouds to break, and 
for a restoration of our former sunshine. To wait 
longer would be a crime. All hope for peace is dead. 
My prayers have proved as idle as my hopes. I go to 
see and share the bitter end. 

I have ever held that the South were right. The 
very nomination of Abraham Lincoln, four years ago, 
spoke plainly war — war upon the Southern rights and 
institutions. His election proved it. "Await an 



234 STORIES AND INCIDENTS. 

overt act." Yes; till you are bound and plundered. 
What folly! The South were wise. Who thinks of 
argument or patience when the finger of his enemy 
presses on the trigger? In a foreign war, I, too, could 
say, "Country, right or wrong." But in a struggle 
such as ours (where the brother tries to pierce the 
brother's heart), for God's sake choose the right. 
When a country like this spurns justice from her side, 
she forfeits the allegiance of every honest freeman, 
and should leave him, untrammelled by any fealty 
soever, to act as his conscience may approve. 

People of the North, to hate tyranny, to love liberty 
and justice, to strike at wrong and oppression, was 
the teaching of our fathers. The study of our 
early history will not let me forget it, and may it 
never. 

This country was formed for the white, not for the 
black man. And, looking upon African slavery from 
the same standpoint held by the noble framers of our 
Constitution, I, for one, have ever considered it one of 
the greatest blessings (both for themselves and us) that 
God ever bestowed upon a favored nation. Witness 
heretofore our wealth and power; witness their eleva- 
tion and enlightenment above their race elsewhere. 
I have lived among it most of my life, and have seen 
less harsh treatment from master to man than I have 
beheld in the North from father to son. Yet, heaven 
knows, no one would be willing to do more for the 
negro race than I, could I but see a way to still better 
their condition. 

But Lincoln's policy is only preparing the way for 
their total annihilation. The South are not, nor have 
they been, fighting for the continuance of slavery. 



STORIES AND INCIDENTS. 235 

The first battle of Bull Run did away with that idea. 
Their causes since for war have been as noble and 
greater far than those that urged our fathers on. 
Even should we allow that they were wrong they now 
become the right, and they stand (before the wonder 
and admiration of the world) as a noble band of 
patriotic heroes. Hereafter, reading of their deeds, 
Thermopylae will be forgotten. 

When I aided in the capture and execution of John 
Brown (who was a murderer on our western border, 
and who was fairly tried and convicted, before an 
impartial judge and jury, of treason, and who, by-the- 
way, has since been made a god), I was proud of my 
little share in the transaction, for I deemed it my duty, 
and that I was helping our common country to per- 
form an act of justice. But what was a crime in poor 
John Brown is now considered (by themselves) as the 
greatest and only virtue of the whole Republican 
party. Strange transmigration! Vice to become a 
virtue simply because more indulge in it! 

I thought then, as now, that the Abolitionists were 
the only traitors in the land, and that the entire party 
deserved the same fate as poor old Brown ; not because 
they wish to abolish slavery, but on account of the 
means they have ever endeavored to use to effect that 
abolition. If Brown were living, I doubt whether he 
himself would set slavery against the Union. Most, 
or many in the North do, and openly curse the Union 
if the South are to return and retain a single right 
guaranteed to them by every tie which we once revered 
as sacred. The South can make no choice. It is 
either extermination or slavery for themselves (worse 
than death) to draw from. I know my choice. 



236 STORIES AND INCIDENTS. 

I have also studied hard to discover upon what 
grounds the right of a State to secede has been denied, 
when our very name, United States, and the Declara- 
tion of Independence, both provide for secession. But 
there is no time for words. I write in haste. I know 
how foolish I shall be deemed for undertaking such a 
step as this, where, on one side, I have many friends 
and everything to make me happy, where my profes- 
sion alone has gained me an income of more than 
twenty thousand dollars a year, and where my great 
personal ambition in my profession has such a 'great 
field for labor. On the other hand, the South has 
never bestowed upon me one kind word; a place now 
where I have no friends, except beneath the sod; a 
place where I must either become a private soldier or 
a beggar. To give up all of the former for the latter, 
besides my mother and sisters, whom I love so dearly 
(although they so widely differ from me in opinion), 
seems insane; but God is my judge. I love justice 
more than I do a country that disowns it; more than 
fame and wealth; more, (Heaven pardon me if 
wrong), more than a happy home. I have never been 
upon a battle-field; but oh! my countrymen, could you 
all but see the reality or effects of this horrid war as I 
have seen them (in every State, save Virginia), I know 
you would think, like me, and would pray the Almighty 
to create in the Northern mind a sense of right and 
justice (even should it possess no seasoning of mercy), 
and that He would dry up this sea of blood between us, 
which is daily growing wider. Alas, poor country! is 
she to meet her threatened doom? Four years ago I 
would have given a thousand lives to see her remain 
(as I had always known her) powerful and unbroken. 



STORIES AND INCIDENTS. 237 

And even now I would hold my life as naught to see 
her what she was. Oh, my friends, if the fearful 
scenes of the past four years had never been enacted, 
or if what has been had been but a frightful dream, 
from which we could now awake, with what overflow- 
ing hearts we could bless our God and pray for His con- 
tinued favor ! How I have loved the old flag can never 
now be known. A few years since, and the entire 
world could boast of none so pure and spotless. But 
I have of late been seeing and hearing of the bloody 
deeds of which she has been made the emblem, and 
would shudder to think how changed she had grown. 
Oh, how I have longed to see her break from the mist 
of blood and death that circles round her folds, spoil- 
ing her beauty and tarnishing her honor! But, no, 
day by day has she been dragged deeper and deeper 
into cruelty and oppression, till now (in my eyes) her 
once bright red stripes look like bloody gashes on the 
face of heaven. I look now upon my early admiration 
of her glories as a dream. My love (as things stand 
to-day) is for the South alone. Nor do I deem it a dis- 
honor in attempting to make for her a prisoner of this 
man, to whom she owes so much of misery. If suc- 
cess attend me, I go penniless to her side. They say 
she has found that "last ditch" which the North have 
so long derided and been endeavoring to force her in, 
forgetting they are our brothers, and that it is impoli- 
tic to goad an enemy to madness. Should I reach her 
in safety, and find it true, I will proudly beg permis- 
sion to triumph or die in that same "ditch" by her 
side. 

A Confederate doing duty upon his own responsi- 
bility, J. Wilkes Booth. 



238 STORIES AND INCIDENTS. 

WALT WHITMAN'S VIVID DESCRIPTION OF LIN- 
COLN'S ASSASSINATION. 

The day (April 14, 1865) seems to have been a 
pleasant one throughout the whole land — the moral 
atmosphere pleasant, too — the long storm, so dark, so 
fratricidal, full of blood and doubt and gloom, over 
and ended at last by the sunrise of such an absolute 
national victory, and utter breaking down of secession- 
ism — we almost doubted our senses! Lee had capitu- 
lated, beneath the apple tree at Appomattox. The 
other armies, the flanges of the revolt, swiftly followed. 

And could it really be, then? Out of all the affairs 
of this world of woe and passion, of failure and disor- 
der and dismay, was there really come the confirmed, 
unerring sign of peace, like a shaft of pure light — of 
rightful rule — of God? 

But I must not dwell on accessories. The deed 
hastens. The popular afternoon paper, the little 
Evening Star, had scattered all over its third page, 
divided among the advertisements in a sensational 
manner in a hundred different places: 

"The President and his lady will be at the theater 
this evening." 

Lincoln was fond of the theater. I have myself seen 
him there several times. I remember thinking how 
funny it was that he, the leading actor in the greatest 
and stormiest drama known to real history's stage, 
through centuries, should sit there and be so com- 
pletely interested in those human jackstraws, moving 
about with their silly little gestures, foreign spirit, and 
flatulent text. 

So the day, as I say, was propitious. Early herbage, 
early flowers, were out. I remember where I was 



STORIES AND INCIDENTS. 



239 



stopping at the time, the season being advanced, there 
were many lilacs in full bloom. By one of those 
caprices that enter and give tinge to events without 
being a part of them, I find myself always reminded of 
the great tragedy of this day by the sight and odor of 
these blossoms. It never fails. 




HOUSE IN WHICH LINCOLN DIED, WASHINGTON, D. C 



On this occasion the theater was crowded, many 
ladies in rich and gay "costumes, officers in their uni- 
forms, many well-known citizens, young folks, the 
usual cluster of gas lights, the usual magnetism of so 
many people, cheerful with perfumes, music of violins 
and flutes — and over all, that saturating, that vast, 
vague wonder, Victory, the nation's victory, the 
triumph of the Union, filling the air, the thought, the 
gense, with exhilaration more than all the perfumes, 



2 4 o STORIES AND INCIDENTS. 

The President came betimes, and, with his wife, 
witnessed the play from the large stage boxes of the 
second tier, two thrown into one, and profusely draped 
with the national flag. The acts and scenes of the 
piece — one of those singularly witless compositions 
which have at the least the merit of giving entire 
relief to an audience engaged in mental action or busi- 
ness excitements and cares during the day, as it makes 
not the slightest call on either the moral, emotional, 
esthetic or spiritual nature — a piece ("Our American 
Cousin") in which, among other characters so called, a 
Yankee, certainly such a one as was never seen, or at 
least like it ever seen in North America, is introduced 
in England, with a varied fol-de-rol of talk, plot, 
scenery, and such phantasmagoria as goes to make up 
a modern popular drama — had progressed perhaps 
through a couple of its acts, when, in the midst of this 
comedy, or tragedy, or non-such, or whatever it is to 
be called, and to offset it, or finish it out, as if in 
Nature's and the Great Muse's mockery of these 
poor mimics, comes interpolated that scene, not 
really or exactly to be described at all (for on 
the many hundreds who were there it seems to this 
hour to have left little but a passing blur, a dream, a 
blotch) — and yet partially described as I now proceed 
to give it: 

There is a scene in the play, representing the mod- 
ern parlor, in which two unprecedented ladies are 
informed by the unprecedented and impossible Yankee 
that he is not a man of fortune, and therefore undesir- 
able for marriage-catching purposes ; after which, the 
comments being finished, the dramatic trio make exit, 
leaving the stage clear for a moment, 



STORIES AND INCIDENTS. 341 

There was a pause, a hush, as it were. At this 
period came the death of Abraham Lincoln. 

Great as that was, with all its manifold train 
circling around it, and stretching into the future for 
many a century, in the politics, history, art, etc., of 
the New World, in point of fact, the main thing, the 
actual murder, transpired with the quiet and simplicity 
of any commonest occurrence — the bursting of a bud 
or pod in the growth of vegetation, for instance. 

Through the general hum following the stage pause, 
with the change of positions, etc., came the muffled 
sound of a pistol shot, which not one-hundredth part 
of the audience heard at the time — and yet a moment's 
hush — somehow, surely a vague, startled thrill — and 
then, through the ornamented, draperied, starred and 
striped space-way of the President's box, a sudden 
figure, a man, raises himself with hands and feet, 
stands a moment on the railing, leaps below to the 
stage (a distance, perhaps, of fourteen or fifteen feet), 
falls out of position, catching his boot-heel in the 
copious drapery (the American flag), falls on one knee, 
quickly recovers himself, rises as if nothing had hap- 
pened (he really sprains his ankle, unfelt then) — and 
the figure, Booth, the murderer, dressed in plain bl tck 
broadcloth, bareheaded, with a full head of glossy, 
raven hair, and his eyes, like some mad animal's, flash- 
ing with light and resolution, yet with a certain strange 
calmness, holds aloft in one hand a large knife — walks 
along not much back of the footlights — turns fully 
towards the audience his face of statuesque beauty, lit 
by those basilisk eyes, flashing with desperation, per- 
haps insanity — launches out in a firm and steady voice 
the words, "Sic semper tyrannis"— and then walks 



242 



STORIES AND INCIDENTS. 



with neither slow nor very rapid pace diagonally across 
to the back of the stage, and disappears. 

(Had not all this terrible scene — making the mimic 
ones preposterous — had it not all been rehearsed, in 
blank, by Booth, beforehand?) 

A moment's hush, incredulous — a scream — a cry of 
murder — Mrs. Lincoln leaning out of the box, with 




i a 
LINCOLN'S DEATH. 



ashy cheeks and lips, with involuntary cry, pointing to 
the retreating figure, "He has killed the President!" 
And still a moment's strange, incredulous suspense 
— and then the deluge! — then that mixture of horror, 
noises, uncertainty — the sound, somewhere back, of a 
horse's hoofs clattering with speed — the people burst 
through chairs and railings, and break them up — that 
noise adds to the queerness of the scene — there is 



STORIES AND INCIDENTS. 243 

inextricable confusion and terror — women faint — quite 
feeble persons fall, and are trampled on — many cries 
of agony are heard — the broad stage suddenly fills to 
suffocation with a dense and motley crowd, like some 
horrible carnival — the audience rush generally upon it 
— at least the strong men do — the actors and actresses 
are there in their play costumes and painted faces, 
with mortal fright showing through the rouge — some 
trembling, some in tears — the screams and calls, con- 
fused talk — redoubled, trebled — two or three manage 
to pass up water from the stage to the President's box, 
others try to clamber up, etc. , etc. 

In the midst of all this the soldiers of the President's 
Guard, with others, suddenly drawn to the scene, 
burst in — some 200 altogether — they storm the house, 
through all the tiers, especially the upper ones — 
inflamed with fury, literally charging the audience 
with fixed bayonets, muskets and pistols, shouting, 
"Clear out! clear out! you sons of b !" 

Such a wild scene, or a suggestion of it rather, inside 
the playhouse that night! 

Outside, too, in the atmosphere of shock and craze, 
crowds of people filled with frenzy, ready to seize any 
outlet for it, came near committing murder several 
times on innocent individuals. 

One such case was particularly exciting. The 
infuriated crowd, through some chance, got started 
against one man, either for words he uttered, or per- 
haps without any cause at all, and were proceeding to 
hang him at once to a neighboring lamp-post, when he 
was rescued by a few heroic policemen, who placed 
him in their midst and fought their way slowly and 
amid great peril toward the station-house. 



244 STORIES AND INCIDENTS. 

It was a fitting episode of the whole affair. The 
crowd rushing and eddying to and fro, the night, the 
yells, the pale faces, many frightened people trying in 
vain to extricate themselves, the attacked man, not yet 
freed from the jaws of death, looking like a corpse; 
the silent, resolute half-dozen policemen, with no 
weapons but their little clubs; yet stern and steady 
through all those eddying swarms; made, indeed, a 
fitting side scene to the grand tragedy of the murder. 
They gained the station-house with the protected man, 
whom they placed in security for the night, and dis- 
charged in the morning. 

And in the midst of that night pandemonium of 
senseless hate, infuriated soldiers, the audience and 
the crowd — the stage, and all its actors and actresses, 
its paint pots, spangles, gas-light — the life-blood from 
those veins, the best and sweetest of the land, drips 
slowly down, and death's ooze already begins its little 
bubbles on the lips. 

Such, hurriedly sketched, were the accompaniments 
of the death of President Lincoln. So suddenly, and 
in murder and horror unsurpassed, he was taken from 
us. But his death was painless. 



REWARD OFFERED BY SECRETARY STANTON. 

War Department, Washington, April 20, 1865. 
Maj.-Gen. John A. Dix, New York: 

The murderer of our late beloved President, Abra- 
ham Lincoln, is still at large. Fifty thousand dollars 
reward will be paid by this Department for his appre- 
hension in addition to any reward offered by municipal 
authorities or State Executives, 



STORIES AND INCIDENTS. 245 

Twenty-five thousand dollars reward will be paid for 
the apprehension of G. A. Atzerodt, sometimes called 
1 ' Port Tobacco, ' ' one of Booth ' s accomplices. Twenty- 
five thousand dollars reward will be paid for the appre- 
hension of David C. Harold, another of Booth's 
accomplices. A liberal reward will be paid for any 
information that shall conduce to the arrest of either 
the above-named criminals or their accomplices. All 
persons harboring or secreting the said persons, or 
either of them, or aiding or assisting their concealment 
or escape, will be treated as accomplices in the murder 
of the President and the attempted assassination of 
the Secretary of State, and shall be subject to trial 
before a military commission, and the punishment of 
death. 

Let the stain of innocent blood be removed from the 
land by the arrest and punishment of the murderers. 

All good citizens are exhorted to aid public justice 
on this occasion. Every man should consider his own 
conscience charged with this solemn duty, and rest 
neither night nor day until it be accomplished. 

Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War. 



INDICTMENT OF THE CONSPIRATORS— CHARGES AND 
SPECIFICATIONS. 

The following is a copy of the charges and specifica- 
tions against David E. Harold, George A. Atzerodt, 
Lewis Payne, Michael O'Laughlin, John H. Surratt, 
Edward Spangler, Samuel Arnold, Mary E. Surratt, 
and Samuel Mudd: 

Charge 1st. — For maliciously, unlawfully, and traitor- 
ously, and in aid of the existing armed rebellion against 



246 STORIES AND INCIDENTS. 

the United States of America, on or before the 6th day 
of March, A. D. 1865, and on divers other days 
between that day and the 15th day of April, 1865, com- 
bining, confederating, and conspiring together with 
one John H. Surratt, John Wilkes Booth, Jefferson 
Davis, George N. Saunders, Beverley Tucker, Jacob 
Thompson, William C. Cleary, Clement C. Clay, 
George Harper, George Young, and others unknown, 
to kill and murder within the Military Department of 
Washington, and within the fortified and intrenched 
lines thereof, Abraham Lincoln, who, at the time 
of said combining, confederating, and conspiring, 
was President of the United States of America and 
Commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy thereof; 
Andrew Johnson, now Vice-President of the United 
States as aforesaid, William H. Seward, Secretary of 
State of the United States aforesaid, and Ulysses S. 
Grant, Lieutenant-General of the Army of the United 
States aforesaid, then in command of the armies of the 
United States,under the direction of the said Abraham 
Lincoln, and in pursuance of, and in prosecuting said 
malicious.unlawful, and traitorous conspiracy aforesaid, 
and in aid of said rebellion, afterwards, to-wit: On the 
14th day of April, 1865, within the Military Department 
of Washington aforesaid, and within the fortified and 
intrenched lines of said Military Department, together 
with said John Wilkes Booth and John H. Surratt, 
maliciously, unlawfully, and traitorously murdering 
the said Abraham Lincoln, then President of the 
Tinted States, and Commander-in-chief of the Army 
ami Navy of the United States, as aforesaid, and ma- 
liciously, unlawfully, and traitorously assaulting, with 
intent to kill and murder, the said William H. Seward, 



STORIES AND INCIDENTS. 247 

then Secretary of State of the United States as afore- 
said, and lying in wait with intent, maliciously, unlaw- 
fully, and traitorously, to kill and murder the said 
Andrew Johnson, then being Vice-President of the 
United States, and the said Ulysses S. Grant, then 
being Lieutenant-General and in command of the 
armies of the United States aforesaid. 

Specification 1st. — In this that they, the said David 
E Harold, Edward Spangler, Lewis Payne, John H 
Surratt, Michael O'Laughlin, Samuel Arnold, Mary E 
Surratt, George A. Atzerodt, and Samuel A. Mudd, 
incited and encouraged thereunto by Jefferson Davis, 
George N. Saunders, Beverley Tucker, Jacob Thomp- 
son, William C. Cleary, Clement C. Clay, George 
Harper, George Young, and others unknown, citizens 
of the United States aforesaid, and who were then 
engaged in armed rebellion against the United States 
of America, within the limits thereof, did, in aid of 
said armed rebellion, on or before the 6th day of 
March, A. D. 1865, and on divers other days and 
times between that day and the 15th day of April, 
A. D. 1865, combine, confederate, and conspire 
together at Washington City, within the Military 
Department of Washington, and within the intrenched 
fortifications and military lines of the said United 
States, there being, unlawfully, maliciously, and 
traitorously, to kill and murder Abraham Lincoln, 
then President of the United States aforesaid, and 
Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy thereof, 
and unlawfully, maliciously, and traitorously, to kill 
and murder Andrew Johnson, now Vice-President of 
the said United States, upon whom, on the death of 
said Abraham Lincoln, after the 4th day of March, 



248 STORIES AND INCIDENTS. 

A. D. 1865, the office of President of the said United 
States, and the Commander-in-Chief of the Army and 
Navy thereof, would devolve, and to unlawfully, 
maliciously, and traitorously kill and murder Ulysses 
S. Grant, then Lieutenant-General, and under the 
direction of the said Abraham Lincoln, in command of 
the armies of the United States aforesaid, and unlaw- 
fully, maliciously, and traitorously to kill and murder 
William H. Seward, then Secretary of State of the 
United States aforesaid, whose duty it was by law, 
upon the death of said President and Vice-President of 
the United States aforesaid, to cause an election to be 
held for electors of President of the United States; 
the conspirators aforesaid designing and intending by 
the killing and murder of the said Abraham Lincoln, 
Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, and William H. 
Seward as aforesaid, to deprive the Army and Navy of 
the said United States of a Constitutional Commander- 
in-Chief, and to deprive the armies of the United States 
of their lawful commander, and to prevent a lawful 
election of President and Vice-President of the United 
States, aforesaid; and by the means aforesaid to aid and 
comfort the insurgents engaged in armed rebellion 
against the said United States as aforesaid, and thereby 
aid in the subversion and overthrow of the Constitution 
and the laws of the United States; and being so com- 
bined, confederated, and conspiring together in the pros- 
ecution of said unlawful and traitorous conspiracy on 
the night of the 14th day of April, A. D. 1865, at the 
hour of about ten o'clock and fifteen minutes p. m., at 
Ford's Theater, on Tenth Street, in the City of Wash- 
ington, and within the Military Department and mili- 
tary lines aforesaid, John Wilkes Booth, one of the 



STORIES AND INCIDENTS. 249 

conspirators aforesaid, in pursuance of said unlawful 
and traitorous conspiracy, did then and there, un- 
lawfully, maliciously, and traitorously, and with 
intent to kill and murder the said Abraham Lincoln, 
discharge a pistol then held in the hands of him, 
the said Booth, the same being then loaded with 
powder and leaden ball, against and upon the left 
and posterior side of the head of the said Abraham 
Lincoln, and did thereby then and there inflict upon 
him, the said Abraham Lincoln, then President of 
the said United States, and Commander-in-Chief 
of the Army and Navy thereof, a mortal wound, 
whereof afterwards, to-wit: on the 15th day of April, 
A. D. 1865, at Washington City aforesaid, the said 
Abraham Lincoln died, and thereby then and there, 
and in pursuance of said conspiracy, the said defend- 
ant and the said John Wilkes Booth did unlaw- 
fully, traitorously, and maliciously, with the intent 
to aid the rebellion, as aforesaid, kill and murder 
the said Abraham Lincoln, President of the United 
States, as aforesaid, and in further prosecution 
of the unlawful and traitorous conspiracy afore- 
said, and of the murderous and traitorous intent 
of said conspiracy, the said Edward Spangler, on 
the said 14th day of April, A. D. 1865, at about the 
same hour of that day, as aforesaid, within said Mili- 
tary Department and military lines aforesaid, did aid 
and assist the said John Wilkes Booth to obtain an 
entrance to the box in the said theater in which the 
said Abraham Lincoln was sitting at the time he was 
assaulted and shot as aforesaid by John Wilkes Booth ; 
and also did then and there aid said Booth in barring 
and obstructing the door of the box of said theater so 



2 5 o STORIES AND INCIDENTS. 

as to hinder and prevent any assistance to or rescue of 
the said Abraham Lincoln, against the murderous 
assault of the said John Wilkes Booth, and did aid and 
abet him in making-his escape after the said Abraham 
Lincoln had been murdered in the manner aforesaid: 
and in further prosecution of said unlawful, murder- 
ous, and traitorous conspiracy, and in pursuance there- 
of and with the intent as aforesaid, the said David E. 
Harold did, on the 14th day of April, A. D. 1865, 
within the Military Department and military lines 
aforesaid, aid and abet, and assist the said John Wilkes 
Booth in the killing and murder of the said Abraham 
Lincoln, and did then and there aid and abet and 
assist him, the said John Wilkes Booth, in attempting 
to escape through the military lines aforesaid, and 
did accompany and assist the said John Wilkes Booth 
in attempting to conceal himself and escape from 
justice after killing and murdering the said Abraham 
Lincoln aforesaid; and in further prosecution of said 
unlawful and traitorous conspiracy, and of the intent 
thereof as aforesaid, the said Lewis Payne did, on the 
same night of the 14th day of April, 1865, about the 
same hour of ten o'clock, fifteen minutes p. m., at the 
City of Washington, and within the Military Depart- 
ment and the military lines aforesaid, unlawfully and 
maliciously make an assault upon the said William H. 
Seward, Secretary of State as aforesaid, in the dwelling 
house and bed-chamber of him, the said William H. 
Seward, and the said Payne did then and there, with a 
large knife held in his hand, unlawfully, traitorously, 
and in pursuance of said conspiracy, strike, stab, cut, 
and attempt to kill and murder the said William II. 
Seward, and did thereby then and there and with the 



STORIES AND INCIDENTS. 251 

intent aforesaid, with said knife, inflict upon the face 
and throat of William H. Seward divers grievous 
wounds ; and said Lewis Payne, in further prosecution 
of said conspiracy, at the same time and place last 
aforesaid, did attempt, with the knife aforesaid, and a 
pistol, held in his hand, to kill and murder Frederick 
W. Seward, Augustus H. Seward, Emrick W. Hansel, 
and George F. Robinson, who were then striving to pro- 
tect and rescue the said William H. Seward from being 
murdered by the said Lewis Payne, and did then and 
there, with the said knife and pistols held in his hands, 
inflict upon the head of said Frederick W. Seward, 
and upon the persons of said Augustus H. Seward, 
Emrick W. Hansel, and George F. Robinson, divers 
grievous and dangerous wounds, and with intent 
then and there to kill and murder the said Frederick 
W. Seward, Augustus H. Seward, Emrick W. Hansel, 
and George F. Robinson. 

And in further prosecution of said conspiracy, and 
its traitorous and murderous designs, the said George 
A. Atzerodt did, on the night of the 14th of April, A. D. 
1865, and about the same hour aforesaid, within the 
Military Department and military lines aforesaid, lie 
in wait for Andrew Johnson, then Vice-President of 
the United States, aforesaid, with the intent unlaw- 
fully and maliciously to kill and murder him, the said 
Andrew Johnson. 

And in further prosecution of the conspiracy afore- 
said, and of its murderous and treasonable purpose 
aforesaid, on the nights of the 13th and 14th of April, 
A. D. 1865, at Washington City, and within the mili- 
tary department and military lines aforesaid, the said 
Michael O'Laughlin did then and there lie in wait for 



252 STORIES AND INCIDENTS. 

Ulysses S. Grant, then Lieutenant-General and Com- 
mander of the armies of the United States as afore- 
said, with intent then and there to kill and murder 
the said Ulysses S. Grant. 

And in further prosecution of said conspiracy, the 
said Samuel Arnold did, within the Military Depart- 
ment and military lines aforesaid, on or before the 6th 
day of March, A. D. 1865, and on divers other days 
and times between that day and the 15th day of April, 
A. D. 1865, combine, conspire with, and aid, counsel, 
abet, comfort, and support the said John Wilkes Booth, 
Lewis Payne, George A. Atzerodt, Michael O' Laugh - 
lin, and their confederates, in said unlawful, murder- 
ous, and traitorous conspiracy, and in the execution of 
as aforesaid. 

And, in further prosecution of the said conspiracy, 
Mary E. Surratt did at Washington City, and within 
the Military Department and military lines aforesaid, 
on or before the 6th day of March, A. D. 1865, and on 
divers other days and times between that day and the 
30th day of April, A. D. 1865, receive, entertain, har- 
bor and conceal, aid and assist the said John Wilkes 
Booth, David E. Harold, Lewis Payne, John II. Sur- 
ratt, Michael O'Laughlin, George A. Atzerodt, Samuel 
Arnold, and their confederates, with knowledge of the 
murderous and traitorous conspiracy aforesaid, and 
with intent to aid, abet, and assist them in the execu- 
tion thereof, and in escaping from justice after the 
murder of the said Abraham Lincoln, as aforesaid; 
and in further prosecution of said conspiracy, the said 
Samuel A. Mudd did, at Washington City, and within 
the Military Department and military lines aforesaid, 
on or before the 6th day of March, A. D. 1865, and on 



STORIES AND INCIDENTS. 253 

divers other days and times between that day and the 
20th day of April, A. D. 1865, advise, encourage, 
receive, entertain, harbor, and conceal, aid, and assist 
the said John Wilkes Booth, David E. Harold, Lewis 
Payne, John H. Surratt, Michael O'Laughlin, George 
A. Atzerodt, Mary E. Surratt, and Samuel Arnold, 
and their confederates, with knowledge of the murder- 
ous and traitorous conspiracy aforesaid, and with intent 
to aid, abet, and assist them in the execution thereof, 
and in escaping from justice after the murder of the 
said Abraham Lincoln, in pursuance of said conspiracy 
in manner aforesaid. 

By order of the President of the United States. 

J. Holt, Judge-Advocate-General. 



Lincoln's Letters. 



LETTER TO MRS. ARMSTRONG. 

Springfield, 111., Sept. — , 18 — . 

Dear Mrs. Armstrong: I have just heard of your 
deep affliction, and the arrest of your son for murder. 

I can hardly believe that he can be guilty of the 
crime alleged against him. 

It does not seem possible. I am anxious that he 
should have a fair trial, at any rate ; and gratitude for 
your long-continued kindness to me in adverse circum- 
stances prompts me to offer my humble services gratu- 
itously in his behalf. 

It will afford me an opportunity to requite, in a small 
degree, the favors I received at your hand, and that of 
your lamented husband, when your roof afforded me 
grateful shelter, without money and without price. 

Yours truly, 

A. Lincoln. 

AFFECTIONATE SON. 

Lincoln wrote the following at the close of a letter to 
his step-brother, John Johnston, regarding his father, 
Mr. Lincoln, the poor ne'er-do-well, who was ill ; 

"I sincerely hope father may yet recover his health; 
but at all events, tell him to remember to call upon, 

25i 



LINCOLN'S LETTERS. 255 

and confide in, our great and good merciful Maker, 
who will not turn away from him in any extremity. 

"He notes the fall of the sparrow, and numbers the 
hairs of our heads, and He will not forget the dying 
man who puts his trust in Him. 

"Say to him that, if we could meet now, it is doubtful 
whether it would not be more painful than pleasant, 
but that if it is his lot to go now, he will soon have a 
joyful meeting with loved ones gone before, and where 
the rest of us, through the mercy of God, hope ere long 
to join them." 

LINCOLN WRITES HIS STEP-MOTHER. 

Lincoln's love for his second mother was most filial 
and affectionate. In a letter of November 4, 185 1, 
just after the death of his father, he writes to her as 
follows: 

"Dear Mother: Chapman tells me that he wants you 
to go and live with him. If I were you, I would try it 
a while. If you get tired of it (as I think you will 
not), you can return to your own home. Chapman 
feels very kindly to you, and I have no doubt he will 
make your situation very pleasant. 

"Sincerely your son, 

"A. Lincoln." 



LINCOLN'S IDEA OF THE SLAVERY CONFLICT IN 1855. 

Springfield, 111., August 15, 1855. 
Hon. George Robertson, Lexington, Ky. 

My Dear Sir: The volume you left for me has been 
received. I am really grateful for the honor of your 
•kind remembrance, as well as for the book. 



256 LINCOLN'S LETTERS 

The partial reading I have already given it has 
afforded me much of both pleasure and instruction. 
It was new to me that the exact question which led to 
the Missouri Compromise had arisen before it arose in 
regard to Missouri, and that you had taken so prom- 
inent a part in it. Your short but able and patriotic 
speech on that occasion has not been improved upon 
since by those holding the same views; and with all 
the light you then had, the views you took appear to 
me as very reasonable. 

You are not a friend of slavery in the abstract. In 
that speech you spoke of the "peaceful extinction of 
slavery," and used other expressions indicating your 
belief that the thing was, at some time, to have an end. 
Since then we have had thirty-six years of experience ; 
and this experience has demonstrated, I think, that 
there is no peaceful extinction of slavery in prospect 
for us. 

The signal failure of Henry Clay and other good and 
great men, in 1849, to effect anything in favor of a 
gradual emancipation in Kentucky, together with a 
thousand other signs, extinguished that hope utterly. 
On the question of liberty, as a principle, we are not 
what we have been. 

When we were the political slaves of King George, 
and wanted to be free, we called the maxim that "all 
men are created equal" a self-evident truth, but now, 
when we have grown fat, and have lost all dread of 
being slaves ourselves, we have become so greedy to be 
masters th;it we call the same maxim a "self-evident lie." 

The Fourth of July has not quite dwindled away; it 
is still a great day for burning firecrackers! 

That spirit which desired the peaceful extinction of 



LINCOLN'S LETTERS. 257 

slavery has itself become extinct with the occasion and 
the men of the Revolution. Under the impulse of that 
occasion, nearly half the States adopted systems of 
emancipation at once ; and it is a significant fact that 
not a single State has done the like since. 

So far as peaceful, voluntary emancipation is con- 
cerned, the condition of the negro slave in America, 
scarcely less terrible to the contemplation of a free mind, 
is now as fixed and hopeless of change for the better 
as that of the lost souls of the finally impenitent. The 
Autocrat of all the Russians will resign his crown and 
proclaim his subjects free republicans sooner than will 
our American masters voluntarily give up their slaves. 

Our political problem now is, "Can we, as a nation, 
continue together permanently — forever — half slave 
and half free?" 

The problem is too mighty for me. May God, in His 
mercy, superintend the solution. 

Your much obliged friend, and humble servant, 

A. Lincoln. 

Springfield, 111., April 6, 1859. 

Gentlemen: Your kind note inviting me to attend a 
festival in Boston on the 13th instant, in honor of the 
birthday of Thomas Jefferson, was duly received. My 
engagements are such that I cannot attend. 

The Democracy of to-day hold the liberty of one 
man to be absolutely nothing, when in conflict with 
another man's right of property. Republicans, on the 
contrary, are both for the man and the dollar, but, in 
case of conflict, the man before the dollar. 

I remember once being much amused at seeing two 
partially intoxicated men engaged in a fight with their 



25S LINCOLN'S LETTERS. 

great-coats on, which fight, after a long and rather 
harmless contest, ended in each having fought himself 
out of his own coat, and into that of the other. If the 
two leading parties of this day are really identical 
with the two in the days of Jefferson and Adams, they 
have performed the same feat as the two drunken men. 

But, soberly, it is now no child's play to save the 
principles of Jefferson from total overthrow in this 
nation. . . . This is a world of compensations; and 
he who would be no slave must consent to have no 
slave. Those who deny freedom to others deserve it 
not for themselves; and, under a just God, cannot long 
retain it. 

All honor to Jefferson ; to a man who, in the concrete 
pressure of a struggle for national independence by a 
single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity 
to introduce into a merely revolutionary document an 
abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and 
so to embalm it there that to-day and in all coming 
days it shall be a rebuke and stumbling-block to the 
harbingers of reappearing tyranny and oppression. 
Your obedient servant, 

A. Lincoln. 

Messrs. H. L. Pierce, and others, etc. 



LINCOLN'S FIRST LETTER OF ACCEPTANCE. 

Springfield, 111., May 25, i860. 

Hon. George Ashman, President of the Republican 

National Convention. 

Sir: I accept the nomination tendered me by the 

Convention over which you preside, and of which I am 

formally apprised in the letter of yourself and others, 



LINCOLN'S LETTERS, 259 

acting as a committee of the Convention for that pur- 
pose. 

The declaration of principles and sentiments, which 
accompanies your letter, meets my approval; and it 
shall be my care not to violate or disregard it in any 
part. Imploring the assistance of Divine Providence, 
and with due regard to the views and feelings of all 
who were represented in the Convention; to the rights 
of all the States and Territories and people of the 
nation; to the inviolability of the Constitution; and 
the perpetual union, harmony and prosperity of all, 
I am now happy to co-operate for the practical success 
of the principles declared by the Convention. 

Your obliged friend, and fellow citizen, 

A. Lincoln. 

MR, LINCOLN'S REPLY TO THE POET, BRYANT. 

Springfield, 111., June 28, i860. 
Please accept my thanks for the honor done me by 
your kind letter of the 16th. I appreciate the danger 
against which you would guard me; nor am I wanting 
in the purpose to avoid it. I thank you for the addi- 
tional strength your words give me to maintain that 
purpose. Your friend and servant, 

A. Lincoln. 

LETTER TO GENERAL DUFF GREEN. 

Springfield, 111., Dec. 28, i860. 
Gen. Duff Green. 

My Dear Sir : I do not desire any amendment of the 
Constitution. Recognizing, however, that questions 
of such amendment rightfully belong to the American 
people, I should not feel justified nor inclined to with- 



2 6o LINCOLN'S LETTERS. 

hold from them, if I could, a fair opportunity of 
expressing their will thereon through either of the 
modes prescribed in the instrument. 

In addition, I declare that the maintenance inviolate 
of the rights of the States, and especially the right of 
each State, to order and control its own domestic insti- 
tutions, according to its own judgment exclusively, is 
essential to the balance of powers on which the per- 
fection and endurance of our political fabric depend ; 
and I denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of 
the soil of any State or Territory, no matter under 
what protest, as the gravest of crimes. 

I am greatly averse to writing anything for the pub- 
lic at this time; and I consent to the publication of 
this only upon the condition that six of the twelve 
United States Senators for the States of Georgia, Ala- 
bama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, and Texas shall 
sign their names to what is written on this sheet, below 
my name, and allow the whole to be published together- 

Yours truly, 

A. Lincoln. 



MR. LINCOLN'S FIRST PUBLIC LETTER AFTER HIS 
ELECTION. 

Springfield. 111., Jan. 28, 1S61. 
Messrs. R. A. Cameron, Walter Marsh, and D. C. 
Branham, Committee. 
Gentlemen: I have the honor to acknowledge the 
receipt by your hands of a copy of a joint resolution 
adopted by the Legislature of the State of Indiana, on 
the 15th instant, inviting me to visit that honorable 
body on my way to the Federal Capital. 



LINCOLN'S LETTERS. 261 

Expressing my profound gratitude for the flattering 
testimonial of their regards and esteem, be pleased to 
bear to them my acceptance of their kind invitation, 
and inform them, I will comply in accordance with 
their expressed desire, on the 12th day of February 
next. With feelings of high consideration, I remain 
your obedient servant, 

A. Lincoln. 



LINCOLN TO COLFAX. 

Executive Mansion, March 8, 1861. 
Hon. Schuyler Colfax. 

My Dear Sir: Your letter of the 6th has just been 
handed me by Mr. Baker, of Minnesota. When I said 
to you the other day that I wished to write you a letter, 
I had reference, of course, to my not having offered 
you a Cabinet appointment. 

I meant to say, and now do say, you are most honor- 
ably and amply recommended; and a tender of the 
appointment was not withheld, in any part, because of 
anything happening in 1858. Indeed, I should have 
decided as I did easier than I did had that matter 
never existed. I had partly made up my mind in 
favor of Mr. Smith — not conclusively, of course — 
before your name was mentioned in that connection. 
When you were brought forward, I said, "Colfax is a 
young man, is already in position, is running a brilliant 
career, and is sure of a bright future in any event — 
with Smith it is now or never." 

I considered either abundantly competent, and 
decided on the ground I stated. 

I now have to beg that you will not do me the 



262 LINCOLN'S LETTERS. 

injustice to suppose for a moment that I remember 
anything against you in malice. 

Yours very truly, 

A. Lincoln. 

LINCOLN TO SEWARD. 

The Secretary of State considered it his duty to urge 
the President to more energetic action, April, '61, and 
presented his ideas under the following head, "Some 
Thoughts for the President's Consideration, April i, 
1861" 

"First, we are at the end of a month's administra- 
tion, and yet without a policy, either domestic, foreign," 
etc., etc. The President sent his reply the same 
day. Only the "hand of iron in the glove of velvet" 
could have written the answer. It was irresistible 
logic, faultless in tact, kind but positively firm. 

The President concludes: "I remark (regarding an 
energetic policy) that if this must be done, I must do 
it. When a general line of policy is adopted I appre- 
hend there is no danger of its being changed without 
good reason or continuing to be a subject of unneces- 
sary debate. Still, on points arising in its progress, 
I wish, and suppose I am entitled to have, the advice 
of all the Cabinet. Your ob't serv't, 

"A. Lincoln." 



INSTRUCTIONS TO MAJOR ROBERT ANDERSON. 

War Department, Washington, April 4, 1861. 
Sir: Your letter of the 1st instant occasions some 
anxiety to the President. 

On the information of Captain Fox, he had sup- 



LINCOLN'S LETTERS. 263 

posed you could hold out till the 15th instant without 
any great inconvenience, and had prepared an expedi- 
tion to relieve you before that period. 

Hoping still that you will be able to sustain your- 
self till the nth or 12th instant, and he has entire 
confidence that you will act as becomes a patriot and a 
soldier under all circumstances. 

Whenever, if at all, in your judgment, to save your- 
self and your command, a capitulation becomes a 
necessity, you are authorized to make it. 
Respectfully, 
Simon Cameron, Secretary of War. 
To Major Robt. Anderson, United States Army. 

The above was drafted by President Lincoln and 
signed by the Secretary of War. 



Washington, Feb. 3, 1862. 
General McClellan. 

My Dear Sir: You and I have distinct and different 
plans for a movement of the Army of the Potomac — 
yours to be down the Chesapeake, up the Rappahan- 
nock to Urbana and across land to the terminus of the 
railroad on the York River; mine to move directly to 
the point on the railroads southwest of Manassas. 

If you will give me satisfactory answers to the fol- 
lowing questions, I shall gladly yield my plan to yours: 

First : Does not your plan involve a greatly larger 
expenditure of time and money than mine? 

Second: Wherein is a victory more certain by your 
plan than mine? 

Third : Wherein is a victory more valuable by your 
plan than mine? 



2 6j LINCOLN'S LETTERS, 

Fourth: In fact, would it not be less valuable in 
this, that it would break no greater line of the enemies' 
communication, than mine would? 

Fifth: In case of disaster, would not a retreat be 
more difficult by your plan than by mine? 

Yours truly, 

A. Lincoln. 



LETTER TO AUGUST BELMONT. 

July 31, 1862. 
August Belmont, Esq. 

Dear Sir : You send to Mr. W an extract from a 

letter written at New Orleans the 9th instant, which is 
shown to me. 

You do not give the writer's name; but plainty he is 
a man of ability and probably of some note. He says, 
"The time has arrived when Mr. Lincoln must take a 
decisive course. 

"Trying to please everybody, he will satisfy nobody. 

"A vacillating policy in matters of importance is the 
very worst. Now is the time, if ever, for honest men 
who love their country to rally to its support. 

"Why will not the North say officially that it wishes 
for the restoration of the Union as it was?" 

And so it seems, this is the point in which the writer 
thinks I have no policy. Why will he not read and 
understand what I have said? The substance of the 
very subject In- desires is in the two inaugurals, in each 
of tin- two regular messages sent to C ongress, and in 
main - , if not all, of the minor documents issued by the 
i Utive since the inauguration. 

Broken eggs cannot be mended; but Louisiana has 



LINCOLN'S LETTERS. 265 

nothing to do now but to take her place in the Union 
as it was, barring the already broken eggs. The 
sooner she does so, the smaller will be the amount of 
that which is past mending. 

This Government cannot much longer play a game in 
which it stakes all, and its enemies stake nothing. 

Those enemies must understand that they cannot 
experiment for ten years trying to destroy the Govern- 
ment, and, if they fail, still come back into the Union 
unhurt. 

If they expect, in any contingency, to ever have the 
Union as it was, I join with the writer in saying, 
"Now is the time." 

How much better it would have been for the writer 
to have gone at this under the protection of the Army 
at New Orleans, than to have sat in a closet writing 
complaining letters northward ! Yours truly, 

A. Lincoln. 



THE PRESIDENT ON THE NEGRO QUESTION. 

Executive Mansion, Washington, August 22, 1862. 

Hon. Horace Greeley: I have just read yours of the 
19th addressed to myself through the New York 
Tribune. 

If there be in it any statements or assumptions of 
fact which I may know to be erroneous, I do not now 
and here controvert it. 

If there be in it any inference which I believe to be 
falsely drawn, I do not now and here argue against it. 

If there be perceptible in it an impatient and dic- 
tatorial tone, I waive it, in deference to an old friend, 
whose heart I have always supposed to be right. 



266 LINCOLN'S LETTERS. 

As to the policy I "seem to be pursuing," as you 
say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt. I 
would save the Union. I would save it in the shortest 
way under the Constitution. The sooner the national 
authority can be restored, the nearer the Union will be 
"the Union as it was. " 

If there be those who would not save the Union 
unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do 
not agree with them. If there be those who would 
not save the Union unless they could at the same time 
destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. 

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the 
Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery. 

If I could save the Union without freeing any slave 
I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the 
slaves, I would do it. And if I could save it by free- 
ing some and leaving others alone, I would also do 
that. 

What I do about slavery and the colored race I do 
because I believe it helps to save the Union. And 
what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it 
would help to save the Union. I shall do less when- 
ever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause; 
and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing 
more will help the cause. 

I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors, 
and I shall adopt new views as fast as they shall appear 
to be true views. 

I have here stated my purpose according to my 
views of official duty, and I intend no modification of 
my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every- 
where should be free. Yours, 

A. Lincoln. 



LINCOLN'S LETTERS. 267 

PARTIAL REPLY TO CENSURE ON THE ARREST OF 
VALLANDIGHAM, JUNE, 1863. 

"Mr. Vallandigham avows his hostility to the war on 
the part of the Union ; and his arrest was made because 
he was laboring, with some effect, to prevent the rais- 
ing of troops, to encourage desertions from the army, 
and to leave the rebellion without an adequate military 
force to suppress it. 

"He was not arrested because he was damaging the 
political prospects of the administration, or the per- 
sonal interests of the Commanding General, but 
because he was damaging the army, upon the exist- 
ence and vigor of which the life of the nation depends. 

"He was warring upon the military, and this gave 
the military the Constitutional jurisdiction to lay hands 
upon him. A. Lincoln." 

LETTER TO MAJOR-GENERAL HOOKER. 

Executive Mansion, 
Washington, D. C, Jan. 26, 1863. 
Major-General Hooker. 

General : I have placed you at the head of the Army 
of the Potomac. Of course, I have done this upon 
what appears to me to be sufficient reasons, and yet I 
think it best for you to know that there are some 
things in regard to which I am not quite satisfied with 
you. 

I believe you to be a brave and skillful soldier, 
which, of course, I like. I also believe you do not mix 
politics with your profession, in which you are right. 
You have confidence in yourself, which is a valuable, 
if not indispensable, quality. You are ambitious, 



268 LINCOLN'S LETTERS. 

which, within reasonable bounds, does good rather 
than harm. But I think that, during General Burn- 
side's command of the Army, you have taken counsel 
of your ambitions, and thwarted him as much as you 
could, in which you did a great wrong, both to the 
country, and a most meritorious and honorable brother 
officer. 

I have heard, in such a way as to believe it, of your 
recently saying that both the army and the Govern- 
ment needed a dictator. Of course, it was not for this, 
but in spite of it, that I have given you a command. 

Only those generals who gain success can set up as 
dictators. What I ask of you is military success, and 
I will risk the dictatorship. The Government will 
support you to the utmost of its ability, which is 
neither more nor less than it has done and will do for 
all commanders. I much fear that the spirit that you 
have aided to infuse into the army, of criticising their 
commander, and withholding confidence from him, 
will now turn upon you. I shall assist you as far as I 
can to put it down. Neither you nor Napoleon, if he 
were alive again, could get any good out of an army 
while such a spirit prevails in it. 

And now, beware of rashness! Beware of rashness! 
But, with energy and sleepless vigilance, go forward 
and give us victories. Yours very truly, 

A. Lincoln. 

THE PRESIDENT'S LETTER TO HON. JAMES C. CONK- 
LIN, AUGUST 16, 1863. 

"I do not believe that any compromise embracing 
the maintenance of the Union is now possible. 

"The strength of the rebellion is in the army. That 



LINCOLN'S LETTERS. 269 

army dominates all the country and all the people 
within its range. Any offer of terms made by any 
man or men within that range, in opposition to that 
army, is simply nothing for the present, because such 
man or men have no power whatever to enforce their 
side of a compromise, if one were made with them. 
No word or intimation from the rebel army, or from 
any of the men controlling it, in relation to any peace 
compromise, has ever come to my knowledge or belief. 

"You dislike the Emancipation Proclamation, and 
perhaps would have it retracted. You say it is uncon- 
stitutional. I think differently. I think the Constitu- 
tion invests the Commander-in-Chief with the law of 
war in time of war. The most that can be said is, that 
slaves are property. 

"Is there any question that, by the law of war, 
property, both of enemies and friends, may be taken 
when needed ; and is it not needed whenever taking it 
helps us to hurt the enemy? 

"If the Proclamation is not valid in law, it needs no 
retraction; if it is valid, it cannot be retracted, any 
more than the dead can be brought to life. 

"There was more than a year and a half of trial to 
suppress the rebellion before the Proclamation was 
issued, the last one hundred days of which passed under 
an explicit notice that it was coming unless it was 
averted by those in revolt returning to their allegiance. 
The war has certainly progressed as favorably for us 
since the issue of the Proclamation as before. Some of 
the commanders of our armies in the field who have 
given us our most important victories believe that the 
Emancipation Proclamation policy, and the aid of 
colored troops, constitute the heaviest blows yet dealt 



270 LINCOLN'S LETTERS. 

to the rebellion ; and that at least one of those impor- 
tant successes could not have been achieved when it 
was but for the aid of black soldiers. 

"Whatever negroes can be got to do as soldiers 
leaves just so much less for white soldiers to do in 
saving the Union. But negroes, like other people, act 
upon notions. Why should they do anything for us if 
we will do nothing for them? If they stake their lives 
for us there must be the strongest motive — even the 
promise of their freedom. And the promise being 
made must be kept. 

"The signs look better. The Father of Waters goes 
unvexed to the sea. Thanks to the great Northwest 
for it. 

"Nor yet wholly to them. Three hundred miles up 
they met New England, Empire, Keystone, and Jer- 
sey, hewing their way right and left. The sunny 
South, too, in more colors than one, also lent a hand. 
On the spot their part of the history was jotted down 
in black and white. The job was a great national one, 
and let none be banned who bore an honorable part in it. 

"Peace does not appear so distant as it did. I hope 
it will soon come, and come to stay; and so come as to 
be worth keeping in all future time. And then there 
will be some black men who can remember that they 
helped Mankind on to this great consummation, while 
I fear that there will be some white men unable to 
forget that they have striven to hinder it. 

"Still let us be ever sanguine of a speedy final 
triumph. Let us be quite sober. Let us diligently 
apply the means, never doubting that a just God in His 
own good time will give us the rightful results. 

"Your friend, A. Lincoln." 



LINCOLN'S LETTERS. 271 

PRESENTATION OF A GOLD MEDAL* TO LIEUTEN- 
ANT-GENERAL GRANT BY PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 

Executive Mansion, March 7, 1865. 
Lieutenant-General Grant: 

In accordance with a joint resolution of Congress 
approved December 16, 1863, I now have the honor of 
transmitting and presenting to you, in the name of the 
people of the United States of America, a copy of said 
resolutions engrossed on parchment together with the 
gold medal therein ordered and directed. 

Please accept for yourself and all under your com- 
mand the renewed expression of my gratitude for your 
and their arduous and well-performed public service. 

Your obedient servant, 

A. Lincoln. 



LETTER TO MRS. GURNEY, WIFE OF EMINENT 

ENGLISH PREACHER OF THE SOCIETY 

OF FRIENDS. 

My Esteemed Friend : I have not forgotten — prob- 
ably never shall forget — the very impressive occasion 
when yourself and friends visited me on a Sabbath 
forenoon, two years ago; nor has your kind letter, 
written nearly a year later, ever been forgotten. 

In all it has been your purpose to strengthen my 
reliance on God. 

I am much indebted to the good Christian people of 
the country for their constant prayers and consola- 
tions, and to no one more than to yourself. 

The purposes of the Almighty are perfect, and must 

♦The cost of medal was $6,000. 



a;a LINCOLN'S LETTERS. 

prevail, though we erring mortals may fail to accur- 
ately perceive them in advance. 

We hoped for a happy termination of this terrible 
war long before this; but God knows best, and has 
ruled otherwise. We shall yet acknowledge His wis- 
dom, and our own error therein. 

Meanwhile we must work earnestly in the best lights 
He gives us, trusting that so working still conduces to 
the great ends He ordains. Surely, He intends some 
great good to follow this mighty convulsion, which no 
mortal could make, and no mortal could stay. 

Your people, the Friends, have had, and are having, 
a very great trial. On principle and faith, opposed to 
both war and oppression, they can only practically 
oppose oppression by war. In this hard dilemma, 
some have chosen one horn, and some the other. 

For those appealing to me on conscientious grounds, 
I have done, and shall do, the best I could and can, in 
my own conscience, under my oath to the law. That 
you believe this I doubt not, and believing it I shall 
still receive for our country and myself your earnest 
prayers to our Father in heaven. 

Your sincere friend, 

A. Lincoln. 



Lincoln's Great Speeches. 



LINCOLN'S FIRST POLITICAL SPEECH. 

Mr. Lincoln made his first political speech in 1832, 
at the age of twenty-three, when he was a candidate 
for the Illinois Legislature. His opponent had wearied 
the audience by a long speech, leaving him but a short 
time in which to present his views. He condensed all 
he had to say into a few words, as follows: 

"Gentlemen, Fellow-Citizens: I presume you know 
who I am. I am humble Abraham Lincoln. I have 
been solicited by my friends to become a candidate for 
the Legislature. My politics can be briefly stated. 
I am in favor of the Internal Improvement System, and 
a high Protective Tariff. These are my sentiments 
and political principles. If elected, I shall be thank- 
ful. If not, it will be all the same. ' ' 



THE PERPETUITY OF OUR FREE INSTITUTIONS. 

Delivered before the Springfield, 111., Lyceum, in 
January, 1837, when twenty-eight years of age. Com- 
ing, as he did upon this occasion, before a literary 
society, Mr. Lincoln's Websterian diction is more 
observable. 

273 



274 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

"Ladies and Gentlemen: In the great journal of 
things happening under the sun, we, the American 
people, find our account running under date of the 
nineteenth century of the Christian era. We find our- 
selves in the peaceful possession of the fairest portion 
of the earth as regards extent of territory, fertility of 
soil, and salubrity of climate. 

"We find ourselves under the government of a sys- 
tem of political institutions conducing more essentially 
to the ends of civil and religious liberty than any of 
which history of former times tells us. 

"We, when mounting the stage of existence, found 
ourselves the legal inheritors of these fundamental 
blessings. We toiled not in the acquisition or estab- 
lishment of them ; they are a legacy bequeathed to us 
by a once hardy, brave, and patriotic, but now 
lamented and departed race, of ancestors. 

"Theirs was the task (and nobly did they perform 
it) to possess themselves, us, of this goodly land, to 
uprear upon its hills and valleys a political edifice of 
liberty and equal rights; 'tis ours to transmit these — 
the former unprofaned by the foot of an intruder, the 
latter undecayed by the lapse of time and untorn by 
usurpation — to the generation that fate shall permit 
the world to know. This task, gratitude to our 
fathers, justice to ourselves, duty to posterity — all 
imperatively require us faithfully to perform. 

"How, then, shall we perform it? At what point 
shall we expect the approach of danger? Shall we 
expect some trans-Atlantic military giant to step the 
ocean and crush us at a blow? 

"Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa, 
combined, with all the treasures of the earth (our own 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 275 

excepted) in their military chest, with a Bonaparte for 
a commander, could not, by force, take a drink from 
the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial 
of a thousand years, 

"At what point, then, is this approach of danger to 
be expected? I answer, if ever it reach us, it must 
spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. 
If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its 
author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must 
live through all time or die by suicide. 

"I hope I am not over- wary; but, if I am not, there 
is even now something of ill-omen amongst us. I 
mean the increasing disregard for law which pervades 
the country, the disposition to substitute the wild and 
furious passions in lieu of the sober judgment of courts, 
and the worse than savage mobs for the executive min- 
isters of justice. 

"This disposition is awfully fearful in any com- 
munity, and that it now exists in ours, though grating 
to our feelings to admit it, it would be a violation of 
truth and an insult to deny. 

Accounts of outrages committed by mobs form the 
every-day news of the times. They have pervaded 
the country from New England to Louisiana; they are 
neither peculiar to the eternal snows of the former, 
nor the burning sun of the latter. 

"They are not the creatures of climate, neither are 
they confined to the slave-holding or non-slave-holding 
States. Alike they spring up among the pleasure-hunt- 
ing masters of Southern slaves and the order-loving 
citizens of the land of steady habits. Whatever, then, 
their cause may be, it is common to the whole 
country. 



276 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

"Many great and good men, sufficiently qualified for 
any task they may undertake, may ever be found, 
whose ambition would aspire to nothing beyond a seat 
in Congress, a gubernatorial or presidential chair; but 
such belong not to the family of the lion, or the tribe 
of the eagle. 

"What! Think you these places would satisfy an 
Alexander, a Caesar, or a Napoleon? Never! Tower- 
ing genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions 
hitherto unexplored. 

"It seeks no distinction in adding story to story upon 
the monuments of fame, erected to the memory of 
others. It denies that it is glory enough to serve 
under any chief. It scorns to tread in the footpaths of 
any predecessor, however illustrious. It thirsts and 
burns for distinction, and, if possible, it will have it, 
whether at the expense of emancipating the slaves or 
enslaving freemen. 

"Another reason which once was, but which to the 
same extent is now no more, has done much in main- 
taining our institutions thus far. I mean the power- 
ful influence which the interesting scenes of the 
Revolution had upon the passions of the people, as dis- 
tinguished from their judgment. 

"But these histories are gone. They can be read no 
more forever. They were a fortress of strength. But 
what the invading foeman could never do, the silent 
artillery of time has done, — the levelling of the walls. 
They were a forest of giant oaks, but the all-resisting 

hurricane swept over them and left only here and there 
a lone trunk, despoiled of its verdure, shorn of its 
foliage, unshading and unshaded, to murmur in a few 
more gentle breezes and to combat with its mutilated 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 277 

limbs a few more rude storms, then to sink and be no 
more. They were the pillars of the temple of liberty, 
and now that they have crumbled away, that temple 
must fall, unless we, the descendants, supply the places 
with pillars hewn from the same solid quarry of sober 
reason. 

"Passion has helped us, but can do so no more. It 
will in future be our enemy. 

"Reason — cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason — 
must furnish all the materials for our support and 
defense. Let those materials be molded into general 
intelligence, sound morality, and, in particular, a 
reverence for the Constitution and the laws; and then 
our country shall continue to improve, and our nation, 
revering his name, and permitting no hostile foot to 
pass or desecrate his resting-place, shall be the first to 
hear the last trump that shall awaken our Washington. 

"Upon these let the proud fabric of freedom rest as 
the rock of its basis, and as truly as has been said of 
the only greater institution, 'the gates of hell shall not 
prevail against it. ' " 



NATIONAL BANK VS. SUB-TREASURY. 

Delivered in the Second Presbyterian Church, 
Springfield, Illinois, and published in the Sangamon 
Journal, March 6, 1840. The debaters on the ques- 
tion were Messrs. Logan, Baker, Browning and 
Lincoln, against Douglas, Calhoun, Lamborn and 
Thomas. 

4 ' Fellow-citizens : It is peculiarly embarrassing to me 
to attempt a continuance of the discussion, on this 



278 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

evening, which has been conducted in this hall on 
several preceding ones. 

"It is so, because on each of these evenings there 
was a much fuller attendance than now, without any 
reason for its being so except the greater interest the 
community feel in the speaker who addressed them 
then than they do in him who addresses them now. 

"I am, indeed, apprehensive that the few who have 
attended have done so more to spare me mortifica- 
tion than in the hope of being interested in anything I 
may be able to say. 

"This circumstance casts a damp upon my spirits 
which I am sure I shall be unable to overcome during 
the evening. 

"The subject heretofore and now to be discussed is 
the sub-treasury scheme of the present administration, 
as a means of collecting, safe-keeping, transferring 
and disbursing the revenues of the nation as contrasted 
with a national bank for the same purpose. 

"Mr. Douglas has said that we (the Whigs) have 
not dared to meet them (the Locos) in argument on 
this question. 

"I protest against this assertion. I say we have 
again and again during this discussion urged facts and 
arguments against the sub-treasury which they have 
neither dared to deny nor attempted to answer. 

"But lest some may be led to believe that we really 
wish to avoid the question, I now propose, in my 
humble way, to urge these arguments again, at the 
same time begging the audience to mark well the 
positions I shall take and the proof I shall offer to 
sustain them, and that they will not allow Mr. Douglas 
or his friends to escape the force of them by a round 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 279 

of groundless assertions that we dare not meet them 
in argument. 

"First. It will injuriously affect the community by 
its operation on the circulating medium. 

"Second. It will be a more expensive fiscal agent. 

"Third. It will be a less secure depository for the 
public money. 

"Mr. Lamborn insists that the difference between 
the Van Buren party and the Whigs is, that although 
the former sometimes err in practice, they are always 
correct in principle, whereas the latter are wrong in 
principle; and the better to impress this proposition 
he uses a figurative expression in these words: 

" 'The Democrats are vulnerable in the heel, but 
they are sound in the heart and head. ' 

"The first branch of the figure — that the Democrats 
are vulnerable in the heel — I admit is not merely 
figurative, but literally true. Who that looks for a 
moment at their Swartwouts, their Prices, their Har- 
ringtons, and their hundreds of others scampering 
away with the public money to Texas, to Europe, and 
to every spot on earth where a villain may hope to 
find refuge from justice, can at all doubt that they 
are most distressingly affected in their heels with a 
species of running itch? 

"It seems this malady of the heels operates on the 
sound-headed and honest-hearted creatures very much 
like the cork leg in the comic song did on its owner, 
which, when he had once got started on it, the more 
he tried to stop it the more it would run away. 

"At the hazard of wearing this point threadbare, I 
will relate an anecdote which is too strikingly in point 
to be omitted : 



2 8o LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

"A witty Irish soldier who was always boasting of his 
bravery when no danger was near, who invariably 
retreated without orders at the first charge of the 
engagement, being asked by the captain why he did 
so, replied, 'Captain, I have as brave a heart as Julius 
Caesar ever had, but somehow or other, when danger 
approaches, my cowardly legs will run away with it!' 

"So with Mr. Lamborn's party. 

"They take the public money into their own hands 
for the most laudable purposes that wise heads and 
willing hearts can dictate ; but, before they can 
possibly get it out again, their rascally vulnerable 
heels will run away with them. 

"Mr. Lamborn refers to the late elections in the 
States, and from the result predicts that every State in 
the Union will vote for Mr. Van Buren at the next 
Presidential election. 

"Address that argument to cowards and knaves; 
with the free and the brave it will affect nothing. It 
may be true; if it must, let it. Many free countries 
have lost their liberty, and ours may lose hers; but if 
she shall, be it my proudest plume, not that I was the 
last to desert, but that I never deserted her. 

"I know that the great volcano at Washington, 
aroused by the civil spirits that reign there, is belching 
forth the laws of political corruption in a current broad 
and deep, which is sweeping with frightful velocity 
over the whole length and breadth of the land, bidding 
fair to leave unscathed no green spot or living thing; 
while on its bosom are riding, like demons on the wave 
of hell, the imps of that evil spirit fiendishly taunting 
all those who dare resist its destroying course with 
hopelessness of their efforts; ami, knowing this, I 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 281 

cannot deny that all may be swept away. Broken by 
it, I, too, may be ; bow to it, I never will. 

"The probability that we may fall in the struggle 
ought not to deter us from the support of a course we 
believe to be just. It shall not deter me. 

"If ever I feel the soul within me elevate and 
expand to those dimensions, not wholly unworthy of 
its Almighty architect, it is when I contemplate the 
cause of my country deserted by all the world beside, 
and I standing up boldly alone, hurling defiance at her 
victorious opposers. 

"Here, without contemplating the consequences, 
before heaven and in the face of the world, I swear 
eternal fealty to the just cause, as I deem it, of the 
land of my life, my liberty, and my love. 

"And who that thinks with me will not fearlessly 
adopt that oath that I take? Let none falter who 
thinks he is right, and we may succeed. But if, after 
all, we may fail, be it so ; we shall still have the proud 
consolation of saying to our conscience, and to the 
departed shade of our country's freedom, that the 
cause approved of our judgment and adored of our 
hearts in disaster, in chains, in torture, in death, we 
never faltered in defending. ' ' 



A GREAT CONGRESSIONAL SPEECH. 

Abraham Lincoln on the Presidency and general 
politics. Delivered in the House of Representatives, 
Washington, D. C, July 27, 1848. 

"Mr. Speaker: Our Democratic friends seem to be 
in great distress because they think our candidate for 



282 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

the Presidency don't suit us. Most of them cannot 
find out that General Taylor has any principles at all, 
some, however, have discovered that he has one, but 
that one is entirely wrong. This one principle is his 
position on the veto power. 

"The gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Stanton), who 
has just taken his seat, indeed, has said there is very 
little if any difference on this question between General 
Taylor and all the Presidents; and he seems to think 
it sufficient detraction from General Taylor's position 
on it, that it has nothing new in it. But all others, 
whom I have heard speak, assail it furiously. 

"A new member from Kentucky (Mr. Clarke), of 
very considerable ability, was in particular concern 
about it. He thought it altogether novel and unprec- 
edented for a President, or a Presidential candidate, 
to think of approving bills whose Constitutionality 
may not be entirely clear to his own mind. He thinks 
the ark of our safety is gone, unless Presidents shall 
always veto such bills as, in their judgment, may be 
of doubtful Constitutionality. However clear Congress 
may be of their authority to pass any particular act, 
the gentleman from Kentucky thinks the President 
must veto if he has doubts about it. 

"Now, I have neither time nor inclination to argue 
with the gentleman on the veto power as an original 
question ; but I wish to show that General Taylor, and 
not he, agrees with the earliest statesmen on this 
question. When the bill chartering the first Bank 
of the United States passed Congress, its Constitution- 
ality was questioned; Mr. Madison, then in the House 
of Representatives, as well as others, opposed it on 
that ground. General Washington, as President, was 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 283 

called on to approve or reject it. He sought and 
obtained, on the Constitutional question, the separate 
written opinion of Jefferson, Hamilton and Edmund 
Randolph, they then being respectively Secretary of 
State, Secretary of the Treasury, and Attorney- 
General. Hamilton's opinion was for the power; 
while Randolph's and Jefferson's were both against it. 
Mr. Jefferson, after giving his opinion decidedly against 
the Constitutionality of that bill, closed his letter with 
the paragraph I now read: 

" 'It must be admitted, however, that unless the 
President's mind, on a view of everything which is 
urged for and against this bill, is tolerably clear that 
it is unauthorized by the Constitution; if the pro and 
the con hang so even as to balance his judgment, a 
just respect for the wisdom of the Legislature would 
naturally decide the balance in favor of their opinion ; 
it is chiefly for cases where they are clearly misled by 
error, ambition or interest, that the Constitution has 
placed a check in the negative of the President. 

" 'Thomas Jefferson. 

" 'February 15, 1791.' 

"General Taylor's opinion, as expressed in his 
Allison letter, is as I now read: 

" 'The power given by the veto is a high conserva- 
tive power; but, in my opinion, should never be 
exercised, except in cases of clear violation of the 
Constitution, or manifest haste and want of considera- 
tion by Congress.' 

"It is here seen that, in Mr. Jefferson's opinion, if 
on the Constitutionality of any given bill, the President 
doubts, he is not to veto it, as the gentleman from 



284 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

Kentucky would have him to do, but is to defer to 
Congress and approve it. And if we compare the 
opinions of Jefferson and Taylor, as expressed in these 
paragraphs, we shall find them more exactly alike than 
we can often find any two expressions having any 
literal difference. None but interested fault-finders 
can discover any substantial variation. 

"But gentlemen on the other side are unanimously 
agreed that General Taylor has no other principle. 
They are in utter darkness as to his opinions on any 
of the questions of policy which occupy the public 
attention. But is there any doubt as to what he will 
do on the prominent questions, if elected? Not the 
least. It is not possible to know what he will, or 
would do in every imaginable case; because many 
questions have passed away, and others doubtless will 
arise which none of us have yet thought of; but on the 
prominent questions of currency, tariff, internal 
improvements, and Wilmot proviso, General Taylor's 
course is at least as well defined as is General Cass'. 
Why, in their eagerness to get at General Taylor, 
several Democratic members here have desired to 
know whether, in case of his election, a bankrupt 
law is to be established. Can they tell us General 
Cass' opinion on this question? (Some member an- 
swered: 'He is against it.') Aye, how do you know 
he is? There is nothing about it in the platform, or 
elsewhere, that I have seen. If the gentleman knows 
anything which I do not, he can show it. But to 
return: General Taylor, in his Allison letter, says: 

" 'Upon the subject of the tariff, the currency, the 
improvement of our great highways, rivers, lakes, 
and harbors, the will of the people, as expressed 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 285 

through their Representatives in Congress, ought 
to be respected and carried out by the Executive. • 

"Now, this is the whole matter — in substance it is 
this: The people say to General Taylor: 

" 'If you are elected, shall we have a National 
Bank?' 

"He answers: 'Your will, gentlemen, not mine.' 

" 'What about the tariff?' 

" 'Say yourselves.' 

" 'Shall our rivers and harbors be improved?' 

" 'Just as you please. If you desire a bank, an 
alteration of the tariff, internal improvements, any or 
all, I will not hinder you. Send up your members to 
Congress from the various districts, with opinions 
according to your own, and if they are for these 
measures, or any of them, I shall have nothing to 
oppose ; if they are not for them, I shall not, by any 
appliance whatever, attempt to dragoon them into 
their adoption. ' 

"Now, can there be any difficulty in understanding 
this? To you, Democrats, it may not seem like prin- 
ciple ; but surely you cannot fail to perceive the position 
plainly enough. The distinction between it and the 
position of your candidate is broad and obvious, and I 
admit you have a clear right to show it is wrong, if 
you can ; but you have no right to pretend you cannot 
see it at all. We see it, and to us it appears like prin- 
ciple, and the best sort of principle at that — the 
principle of allowing the people to do as they please 
with their own business. 

"My friend from Indiana (Mr. C. B. Smith) has 
aptly asked: 'Are you willing to trust the people?' 
Some of you answered, substantially: 'We are willing 



286 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

to trust the people ; but the President is as much the 
representative of the people as Congress. ' In a certain 
sense, and to a certain extent, he is the representative 
of the people. He is elected by them, as well as 
Congress is. But can he, in the nature of things, 
know the wants of the people as well as three hundred 
other men coming from the various localities of the 
nation? If so, where is the propriety of having a 
Congress? That the Constitution gives the President 
a negative on legislation all know; but that this nega- 
tive should be so combined with platforms and other 
appliances as to enable him, and in fact, almost compel 
him, to take the whole of legislation into his own 
hands, is what we object to — is what General Taylor 
objects to — and is what constitutes the broad dis- 
tinction between you and us. To thus transfer legisla- 
tion is clearly to take it from those who understand 
with minuteness the interest of the people, and give it 
to one who does not and cannot so well understand it. 
"I understand your idea, that if a Presidential 
candidate avow his opinion upon a given question, or 
rather upon all questions, and the people, with full 
knowledge 'of this, elect him, they thereby distinctly 
approve all those opinions. This, though plausible, is 
a most pernicious deception. By means of it measures 
are adopted or rejected, contrary to the wishes of the 
whole of one party, and often nearly half of the other. 
The process is this: Three, four, or a half-dozen 
questions are prominent at a given time; the party 
selects its candidate, and he takes his position on each 
of these questions. All but one of his positions 
have already been indorsed at former elections, and 
his party fully committed to them ; but that one is 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 287 

new, and a large portion of them are against it. But 
what are they to do? The whole are strung together, 
and they must take all or reject all. They cannot take 
what they like and leave the rest. What they "are 
already committed to, being the majority, they shut 
their eyes and gulp the whole. Next election still 
another is introduced in the same way. 

"If we run our eyes along the line of the past, we 
shall see that almost, if not quite, all the articles of 
the present Democratic creed have been at first forced 
upon the party in this very way. And just now, and 
just so, opposition to internal improvements is to be 
established if General Cass shall be elected. Almost 
half the Democrats here are for improvements, but 
they will vote for Cass, and if he succeeds, their votes 
will have aided in closing the doors against improve- 
ments. Now, this is a process which we think is 
wrong. We prefer a candidate who, like General Tay- 
lor, will allow the people to have their own way 
regardless of his private opinion; and I should think 
the internal improvement Democrats at least, ought to 
prefer such a candidate. He would force nothing on 
them which they don't want, and he would allow them 
to have improvements, which their own candidate, if 
elected, will not. 

"Mr. Speaker, I have said that General Taylor's 
position is as well defined as is that of General Cass. 
In saying this, I admit I do not certainly know what 
he would do on the Wilmot Proviso. I am a Northern 
man, or rather a Western free State man, with a con- 
stituency I believe to be, and with personal feelings I 
know to be, against the extension of slavery. As 
such, and with what information I have, I hope, and 



288 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

believe, General Taylor, if elected, would not veto the 
proviso, but I do not know it. Yet, if I knew he would 
I still would vote for him. I should do so, because in 
my judgment his election alone can defeat General 
Cass; and because should slavery thereby go into the 
territory we now have, just so much will certainly 
happen by the election of Cass; and in addition, a 
course of policy leading to new wars, new acquisitions 
of territory, and still further extension of slavery. 
One of the two is to be President; which is preferable? 

"But there is as much doubt of Cass on im- 
provements as there is of Taylor on the proviso. I 
have no doubt of General Cass on this question, but I 
know the Democrats differ among themselves as to his 
position. My internal improvement colleague (Mr. 
Wentworth) stated on this floor the other day, that 
he was satisfied Cass was for improvements, because 
he had voted for all the bills that he (Mr. W.) had. 
So far so good. But Mr. Polk vetoed some of these 
very bills; the Baltimore Convention passed a set of 
resolutions, among other things, approving these 
vetoes, and Cass declares in his letter accepting the 
nomination, that he has carefully read these resolu- 
tions, and that he adheres to them as firmly as he 
approves them cordially. In other words, General 
Cass voted for the bills, and thinks the President did 
right to veto them; and his friends here are amiable 
enough to consider him as being on one side or the 
other, just as one or the other may correspond with 
their own respective inclinations. 

"My colleague admits that the platform declares 
against the Constitutionality of a general system of 
improvements, and that General Cass indorses the 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 289 

platform ; but he still thinks General Cass is in favor 
of some sort of improvements. Well, what are they? 
As he is against general objects, those he is for must 
be particular and local. Now, this is taking the sub- 
ject precisely by the wrong end. Particularity — 
expending the money of the whole people for an 
object which will benefit only a portion of them, is the 
greatest objection to improvements, and has been so 
held by General Jackson, Mr. Polk, and all others, I 
believe, till now. But now behold, the objects most 
general, nearest free from this objection, are to be 
rejected, while those most liable to it are to be 
embraced. To return : I cannot help believing that 
General Cass, when he wrote his letter of acceptance, 
well understood he was to be claimed by the advocates 
of both sides of this question, and that he then closed 
the doors against all further expressions of opinion, 
purposely to retain the benefits of that double position. 
His subsequent equivocation at Cleveland, to my 
mind, proves such to have been the case. 

"One word more, and I shall have done with this 
branch of the subject. You Democrats, and your 
candidate, in the main, are in favor of laying down, 
in advance, a platform — a set of party positions, as a 
unit ; and then of enforcing the people, by every sort 
of appliance, to ratify them, however unpalatable some 
of them may be. We, and our candidate, are in favor 
of making Presidential elections and the legislation of 
the country distinct matters; so that the people can 
elect whom they please, and afterward legislate just 
as they please, without any hindrance, save only so 
much as may guard against infractions of the Constitu- 
tion, undue haste, and want of consideration. 



290 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

"The difference between us is as clear as noon-day. 
That we are right we cannot doubt. We hold the true 
Republican position. In leaving the people's business 
in their hands, we cannot be wrong. We are willing, 
and even anxious, to go to the people on this issue. 

"But I suppose I cannot reasonably hope to convince 
you that we have any principles. The most I can 
expect is, to assure you that we think we have, and 
are quite contented with them. 

"The other day, one of the gentlemen from Georgia 
(Mr. Iverson), an eloquent man, and a man of learn- 
ing, so far as I can judge, not being learned myself, 
came down upon us astonishingly. He spoke in what 
the Baltimore American calls the 'scathing and wither- 
ing style. ' At the end of his second severe flash I was 
struck blind, and found myself feeling with my fingers 
for an assurance of my continued physical existence. 
A little of the bone was left, and I gradually revived. 
He eulogized Mr. Clay in high and beautiful terms, 
and then declared that we had deserted all our prin- 
ciples, and had turned Henry Clay out, like an old 
horse, to root. This is terribly severe. It cannot be 
answered by argument ; at least I cannot so answer it. 

"I merely wish to ask the gentleman if the Whigs 
are the only party he can think of who sometimes 
turn old horses out to root! Is not a certain Martin 
Van Buren an old horse, which your party turned out 
to root? and is he not rooting to your discomfort about 
now? But in not nominating Mr. Clay, we deserted 
our principles, you say. Ah! in what? Tell us, ye 
men of principle, what principle we violated? We say 
you did violate principle in discarding Martin Van 
Buren, and we can tell you how. You violated the 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 291 

primary, the cardinal, the one great living principle of 
all Democratic representative government — the prin- 
ciple that the representative is bound to carry out the 
known will of his constituents. 

"A large majority of the Baltimore Convention of 
1844 were, by their constituents, instructed to procure 
Van Buren's nomination if they could. In violation, 
in utter, glaring contempt of this, you rejected him — 
rejected him, as the gentleman from New York (Mr. 
Birdsall), the other day, expressly admitted, for 
availability — that same 'general availability' which you 
charge on us, and daily chew over here, as something 
exceedingly odious and unprincipled. 

"But the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Iverson), 
gave us a second speech yesterday, all well considered 
and put down in writing, in which Van Buren was 
scathed and withered a 'few' for his present position 
and movements. I can not remember the gentleman's 
precise language, but I do remember he put Van Buren 
down, down, till he got him where he was finally to 
'sink' and 'rot.' 

"By the way, Mr. Speaker, did you know I am a 
military hero? Yes, sir, in the days of the Black Hawk 
war I fought, bled, and came away. Speaking of 
General Cass' career, reminds me of my own. I was 
not at Stillman's defeat, but I was about as near it as 
Cass to Hull's surrender; and like him, I saw the 
place very soon afterward. It is quite certain I did 
not break my sword, for I had none to break; but I 
bent a musket pretty badly on one occasion. If Cass 
broke his sword, the idea is, he broke it in desperation ; 
I bent the musket by accident. If General Cass went 
in advance of me in picking whortleberries, I guess I 



292 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

surpassed him in charges upon wild onions. If he saw 
any live, fighting Indians, it was more than I did, but 
I had a good many bloody struggles with the 
mosquitoes; and although I never fainted from loss 
of blood, I can truly say I was often very hungry. 

"Mr. Speaker, if I should ever conclude to doff 
whatever our Democratic friends may suppose there 
is of black-cockade Federalism about me, and, there- 
upon, they should take me up as their candidate for the 
Presidency, I protest they shall not make fun of me as 
they have of General Cass, by attempting to write me 
into a military hero. 

"While I have General Cass in hand, I wish to say a 
word about his political principles. As a specimen, I 
take the record of his progress on the Wilmot Proviso. 
In the Washington Union, of March 2, 1847, there is 
a report of the speech of General Cass, made the day 
before in the Senate, on the Wilmot Proviso, during 
the delivery of which Mr. Miller, of New Jersey, is 
reported to have interrupted him as follows, to- wit: 

" 'Mr. Miller expressed his great surprise at the 
change in the sentiments of the Senator from Michi- 
gan, who had been regarded as the great champion of 
freedom in the Northwest, of which he was a distin- 
guished ornament. Last year the Senator from Mich- 
igan was understood to be decidedly in favor of the 
Wilmot Proviso; and, as no reason had been stated for 
the change, he (Mr. Miller) could not refrain from the 
expression of his extreme surprise.' 

"To this General Cass is reported to have replied as 
follows, to-wit: 

"Mr. Cass said that the course of the Senator from 
New Jersey was most extraordinary. Last year he 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 293 

(Mr. Cass) should have voted for the proposition had 
it come up. But circumstances had altogether 
changed. The honorable Senator then read several 
passages from the remarks given above, which he had 
committed to writing in order to refute such a charge 
as that of the Senator from New Jersey. 

"In the 'remarks above committed to writing,' is 
one numbered 4, as follows, to-wit : 

" '4th. Legislation would now be wholly imperative, 
because no territory hereafter to be acquired can be 
governed without an act of Congress providing for its 
government. And such an act, on its passage, would 
open the whole subject, and leave the Congress, called 
on to pass it, free to exercise its own discretion, 
entirely uncontrolled by any declaration found in the 
statute book.' 

"In Niles' Register, vol. 73, page 293, there is a 
letter of General Cass to A. O. P. Nicholson, of Nash- 
ville, Tennessee, dated December 25, 1847, from which 
the following are correct extracts : 

" 'The Wilmot Proviso has been before the country 
some time. It has been repeatedly discussed in 
Congress, and by the public press. I am strongly 
impressed with the opinion that a great change has 
been going on in the public mind upon this subject — 
in my own as well as others; and that doubts are 
resolving themselves into convictions, that the prin- 
ciple it involves should be kept out of the National 
Legislature, and left to the people of the Confederacy 
in their respective local governments. 

" 'Briefly, then, I am opposed to the exercise of any 
jurisdiction by Congress over this matter; and I am in 
favor of leaving the people of any territory which may 



294 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

be hereafter acquired, the right to regulate it them- 
selves, under the general principles of the Constitution. 
Because : 

" 'I do not see in the Constitution any grant of the 
requisite power to Congress; and I am not disposed to 
extend a doubtful precedent beyond its necessity — the 
establishment of territorial governments when needed 
— leaving to the inhabitants all the rights compatible 
with the relations they bear to the Confederation. ' 

"These extracts show, in 1846, General Cass was for 
the Proviso at once; that, in March, 1847, he was still 
for it but not just then; and that, in December, 1847, 
against it altogether. This is a true index to the 
whole man. When the question was raised in 1846, 
he was in a blustering hurry to take ground for it. 
He sought to be in advance, and to avoid the uninter- 
esting position of a mere follower; but soon he began 
to see a glimpse of the great Democratic ox-gad wav- 
ing in his face, and to hear indistinctly a voice saying, 
'Back, back, sir; back a little.' He shakes his head 
and bats his eyes, and blunders back to his position of 
March, 1847; and still the gad waves and the voice 
grows more distinct, and sharper still — 'Back, sir! back, 
I say! further back!' and back he goes to the position 
of December, 1847; at which the gad is still, and the 
voice soothingly says, 'So! stand still at that.' 

"Have no fears, gentlemen, of your candidate, he 
exactly suits you, and we congratulate you upon it. 
However much yon may be distressed about our eandi- 
date you have all cause to be contented and happy 
with your own. If elected he may not maintain all, 
or even any of his positions previously taken; but he 
will be sure to do whatever the party exigency, for 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 295 

the time being", may require; and that is precisely 
what you want. He and Van Buren are the same 
'manner of men'; and like Van Buren, he will never 
desert you till you first desert him. 

"But I have introduced General Cass' accounts here, 
chiefly to show the wonderful physical capacities of 
the man. They show that he not only did the labor 
of several men at the same time, but that he often did 
it at several places many hundred miles apart, at the 
same time. And at eating, too, his capacities are 
shown to be quite as wonderful. From October, 182 1, 
to May, 1822, he ate ten rations a day in Michigan, 
ten rations a day here in Washington, and near five 
dollars' worth a day besides, partly on the road 
between the two places. 

"And then there is an important discovery in his 
example — the art of being paid for what one eats, 
instead of having to pay for it. Hereafter, if any nice 
man shall owe a bill which he cannot pay in any other 
way, he can just board it out. 

"Mr. Speaker, we have all heard'of the animal stand- 
ing in doubt between two stacks of hay, and starving 
to death; the like of that would never happen to 
General Cass. Place the stacks a thousand miles apart, 
he would stand stock-still, midway between them, and 
eat both at once ; and the green grass along the line 
would be apt to suffer some, too, at the same time. 
By all means, make him President, gentlemen. He 
will feed you bounteously — if — if there is any left after 
he shall have helped himself. 

"But as General Taylor is, par excellence, the hero 
of the Mexican war; and, as you Democrats say we 
Whigs have always opposed the war, you think it must 



296 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

be very awkward and embarrassing for us to go for 
General Taylor. 

"The declaration that we have always opposed the 
war is true or false according as one may understand 
the term, 'opposing the war. ' If to say 'the war was 
unnecessarily and unconstitutionally commenced, by 
the President' be opposing the war, then the Whigs 
have very generally opposed it. Whenever they have 
spoken at all they have said this; and they have said 
it on what has appeared good reason to them: The 
marching of an army into the midst of a peaceful 
Mexican settlement, frightening the inhabitants away, 
leaving their growing crops and other property to 
destruction, to you may appear a perfectly amiable, 
peaceful, unprovoking procedure; but it does not 
appear so to us. So to call such an act, to us appears 
no other than a naked, impudent absurdity; and we 
speak of it accordingly. But if, when the war had 
begun, and become the cause of the country, the giving 
of our money and our blood, in common with yours, 
was support of the war, then it is not true that we 
have always opposed the war. With few individual 
exceptions, you have constantly had our votes here for 
all the necessary supplies. 

"And, more than this, you have had the services, the 
blood, and the lives of our political brethren in every 
trial and on every field. The beardless boy and the 
mature man — the humble and the distinguished, you 
have had them. Through suffering and death, by 
disease, and in battle they have endured, and fought, 
and fallen with you. (May and Webster each gave a 
son, never to be returned. 

"From the State of my own residence, besides other 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 297 

worthy but less known Whig names, we sent Marshall, 
Morrison, Baker, and Hardin ; they all fought, and 
one fell, and in the fall of that one, we lost our best 
Whig man. Nor were the Whigs few in number, or 
laggard in the day of danger. In that fearful, bloody, 
breathless struggle at Buena Vista, where each man's 
hard task was to beat back five foes, or die himself, of 
the five high officers who perished, four were Whigs. 

"In speaking of this, I mean no odious comparison 
between the lion-hearted Whigs and Democrats who 
fought there. On other occasions, I doubt not the 
proportion was different. I wish to do justice to all. 
I think of all those brave men as Americans, in whose 
proud fame, as an American, I, too, have a share. 
Many of them, Whigs and Democrats, are my con- 
stituents and personal friends; and I thank them — 
more than thank them — one and all, for the high, 
imperishable honor they have conferred on our 
common State. 

"But the distinction between the cause of the Presi- 
dent in beginning the war, and the cause of the 
country after it was begun, is a distinction which you 
cannot perceive. To you, the President and the coun- 
try seem to be all one. You are interested to see no 
distinction between them; and I venture to suggest 
that possibly your interest blinds you a little. 

"We see the distinction, as we think, clearly enough ; 
and our friends, who have fought in the war, have no 
difficulty in seeing it also. What those who have 
fallen would say, were they alive and here, of course 
we can never know; but with those who have 
returned there is no difficulty. 

"Colonel Haskell and Major Gaines, members here, 



298 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

both fought in the war; and one of them underwent 
extraordinary perils and hardships; still they, like all 
other Whigs here, vote on the record that the war was 
unnecessarily and unconstitutionally commenced by 
the President. 

"And even General Taylor himself, the noblest 
Roman of them all, has declared that, as a citizen, and 
particularly as a soldier, it was sufficient for him to 
know that his country was at war with a foreign 
nation, to do all in his power to bring it to a speedy 
and honorable termination, by the most vigorous and 
energetic operations, without inquiring about its justice, 
or anything else connected with it. 

"Mr. Speaker, let our Democratic friends be com- 
forted with the assurance that we are content with our 
position, content with our company, and content with 
our candidate; and that although they, in their gen- 
erous sympathy, think we ought to be miserable, we 
really are not, and that they may dismiss the great 
anxiety they have on our account. " 



LINCOLN'S TEMPERANCE SPEECH. 

Originally printed as "An address by Abraham 
Lincoln, Esq." Delivered before the Springfield 
Washingtonian Temperance Society, at the Second 
Presbyterian Church, on the sad clay of February, 1S42 j 

"Although the temperance cause has been in prog- 
ress for nearly twenty years, it is apparent to all that it 
is just now being crowned with a degree of success 
hitherto unparalleled. 

"The list of its friends is daily swelled by the addi- 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 299 

tion of fifties, hundreds, and thousands. The cause 
itself seems suddenly transformed from a cold, abstract 
theory to a living, breathing, active, and powerful 
chief thing, going forth 'conquering and to conquer.' 
The citadels of his great adversary are daily being 
stormed and dismantled; his temples and his altars, 
where the rites of his idolatrous worship have long 
been performed, and where human sacrifices have long 
been wont to be made, are daily desecrated and 
deserted. The tramp of the conqueror's fame is 
sounding from hill to hill, from sea to sea, from land 
to land, and calling millions to his standard at a blast. 

"For this new and splendid success we heartily 
rejoice. That success is so much greater now than 
heretofore is doubtless owing to rational causes ; and if 
we would have it continue, we shall do well to enquire 
what those causes are. 

"The warfare heretofore waged against the demon 
intemperance has, somehow or other, been erroneous. 
Either the champions engaged or the tactics they have 
adopted have not been the most proper. These cham- 
pions, for the most part, have been teachers, lawyers, 
and hired agents; between these and a mass of man- 
kind there is a want of approachability, if the term be 
admissible, partial, fatal to their success. They are 
supposed to have no sympathy of feeling or interest 
with those very persons whom it is their object to con- 
vince and persuade. 

"And, again, it is so easy and so common to ascribe 
motives to men of these classes other than those they 
profess to act upon. The preacher, it is said, advo- 
cates temperance because he is a fanatic, and desires a 
union of the Church and State ; the lawyer, from his 



3 oo LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

pride and vanity of hearing himself speak; and the 
hired agent, for his salary. 

"But when one who has long been known as the vic- 
tim of intemperance burst the fetters that have bound 
him and appears before his neighbors 'clothed, in his 
right mind,' a redeemed specimen of long lost 
humanity, and stands up with tears of joy trembling 
in his eyes to tell the miseries once endured, now to be 
endured no more forever; of his once naked and starv- 
ing children, now fed and clad comfortably; of a wife 
long weighed down with woe, weeping, and a broken 
heart, now restored to health, happiness, and a 
renewed affection, and how easily it is all done, once 
resolved to be done; how simple his language; there 
is a logic and eloquence in it that few with human 
feelings can resist. 

"They cannot say that he desired a union of 
Church and State, for he is not a church member; they 
cannot say he is vain of hearing himself speak, for his 
whole demeanor shows he would gladly avoid speaking 
at all; they cannot say he speaks for pay, for he 
receives none. Nor can his sincerity in any way be 
doubted, or his sympathy for those he would persuade 
to imitate his example be denied. 

"In my judgment it is to the battles of this new 
class of champions our late success is greatly, perhaps 
chiefly, owing. But had the old school champions 
themselves been of the most wise selecting? Was 
their system of tactics the most judicious? It seems 
to me it was not. 

"Too much denunciation against dram-sellers and 
dram-drinkers was indulged in. This, I think, was 
both impolitic, and unjust. It was impolitic, because 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 301 

it is not much in the nature of man to be driven to 
anything, still less to be driven about that which is 
exclusively his own business; and least of all, where 
such driving is to be submitted to at the expense of 
pecuniary interest, or burning appetite. 

"When the dram-seller and drinker were incessantly 
told, not in the accents of entreaty and persuasion, 
diffidently addressed by erring men to an erring 
brother, but in the thundering tones of anathema and 
denunciation, with which the lordly judge often groups 
together all the crimes of the felon's life and thrusts 
them in his face just ere he passes sentence of death 
upon him, that they were the authors of all the vice 
and misery and crime in the land ; that they were the 
manufacturers and material of all the thieves and rob- 
bers and murderers that infest the earth ; that their 
houses were the workshops of the devil, and that their 
persons should be shunned by all the good and virtuous 
as moral pestilences. 

"I say, when they were told all this, and in this way, 
it is not wonderful that they were slow, very slow, to 
acknowledge the truth of such denunciation, and to 
join the ranks of their denouncers in a hue and cry 
against themselves. 

"To have expected them to do otherwise than they 
did — to have expected them not to meet denunciation 
with denunciation, crimination with crimination, and 
anathema with anathema — was to expect a reversal of 
human nature, which is God's decree and can never be 
reversed. 

"When the conduct of men is designed to be influ- 
enced, persuasion, kind, unassuming persuasion, should 
ever be adopted. It is an old and true maxim that, 



3 o2 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

'A drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of 
gall. ' So with men. 

"If you would win a man to your cause, first con- 
vince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is 
the drop of honey that catches his heart ; which, do what 
he will, is the great road to his reason, and which, 
when once gained, you will find but little trouble in 
convincing his judgment of the justice of your cause, 
if, indeed, that cause be really a just one. On the 
contrary, assume to dictate to his judgment, or to com- 
mand his action, or to mark him as one to be shunned 
and despised, and he will retreat within himself, close 
all the avenues to his head and his heart, and though 
your cause be the naked truth itself, transformed to the 
heaviest lance, harder than steel, and sharper than 
steel can be made, and though you throw it with more 
than herculean force and precision, you shall be no 
more able to pierce him than to penetrate the hard 
shell of a tortoise with a rye straw. Such is man, and 
so must he be understood by those who would lead 
him, even to his own best interest. 

"On this point the Washingtonians greatly excel the 
temperance advocates of former times. Those whom 
they desire to convince and persuade are their old 
friends and companions. They know they are not 
demons, nor even the worst of men; they know that 
generally they are kind, generous, and charitable, even 
beyond the example of the more staid and sober neigh- 
bors. They are practical philanthropists; and they 
glow with a generous and brotherly zeal, that mere 
theori/.crs arc incapable of feeling. Benevolence and 
charity possess their heart entirely; and out of the 
abundance of their heart their tongues give utterance: 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 303 

'Love through all their actions runs, and all their words 
are mild' ; in this spirit they speak and act, and in 
the same they are heard and regarded. And when 
such is the temper of the advocate, and such of the 
audience, no good cause can be unsuccessful. But I 
have said that denunciations against dram-sellers and 
dram-drinkers are unjust as well as impolitic. Let us 
see. 

"I have not inquired at what period of time the use 
of intoxicating liquors commenced, nor is it important 
to know. It is sufficient that to all of us who now 
inhabit the world the practice of drinking them is just 
as old as the world itself — that is, we have seen the one 
just as long as we have seen the other. When all 
of us, who have now reached the years of maturity, first 
opened our eyes upon the stage of existence, we found 
intoxicating liquors recognized by everybody, used by 
everybody, repudiated by nobody. It commonly 
entered into the first draught of the infant and the last 
of the dying man. 

"From the sideboard of the parson down to the ragged 
pocket of the homeless loafer, it was constantly found. 
Physicians prescribed it in this, that, and the other 
disease ; Government provided it for soldiers and sail- 
ors ; and to have a rolling or a raising, a husking, or 
hoe-down anywhere about without it, was positively 
insufferable. 

"So, too, it was everywhere a respectable article of 
manufacture and merchandise. The making of it was 
regarded as an honorable livelihood, and he who could 
make most was the most enterprising and respectable. 
Manufactories of it were everywhere erected, in which 
all the earthly goods of their owners were invested. 



304 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

Wagons drew it from town to town, boats bore it from 
clime to clime, and the winds wafted it from nation to 
nation ; and merchants bought and sold it by wholesale 
and retail with precisely the same feelings on the part 
of the seller, buyer, and bystander as are felt at the 
selling and buying of plows, bacon, or any other of the 
real necessaries of life. Universal public opinion not 
only tolerated but recognized and adopted its use. 

"It is true that even then it was known and 
acknowledged that many were greatly injured by it; 
but none seemed to think that the injury arose from 
the use of a bad thing, but from the use of a very good 
thing. The victims of it were to be pitied and com- 
passionated, just as are the heirs of consumption and 
other hereditary diseases. The failing was treated as 
a misfortune, and not as a crime. 

"If, then, what I have been saying is true, is it 
wonderful that some should think and act now as all 
thought and acted twenty years ago ; and is it just to 
assail, condemn, or despise them for doing so? The 
universal sense of mankind, on any subject, is an 
argument, or at least an influence, not easily overcome. 

"The success of the argument in favor of the exist- 
ence of an overruling Providence mainly depends upon 
that sense; and men ought not, in justice, to be 
denounced for yielding to it in any case, or giving it up 
slowly, especially when they are backed by interest, 
fixed habits, or burning appetites. 

"Another error, as it seems to me, into which the 
old reformers fell, was the position that all habitual 
drunkards were utterly incorrigible, and therefore 
must be turned adrift and damned without remedy, in 
order that the grace of temperance might abound, to 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 305 

the temperate, then, and to all mankind some hundreds 
of years thereafter. 

"There is in this, something so repugnant to human- 
ity, so uncharitable, so cold-blooded, and feelingless, 
that it never did, nor never can, enlist the enthusiasm 
of a popular cause. We could not love the man who 
taught it — we could not hear him with patience. The 
heart could not throw open its portals to it ; the gener- 
ous man could not adopt it ; it could not mix with his 
blood. It looked so fiendishly selfish, so like throwing 
fathers and brothers overboard to lighten the boat for 
our security, that the noble-minded shrank from the 
manifest meanness of the thing. And, besides this, 
the benefits of a reformation to be effected by such a 
system were too remote in point of time to warmly 
engage many in its behalf. 

"Few can be induced to labor exclusively for pos- 
terity, and none will do it enthusiastically. Posterity 
has done nothing for us; and, theorize on it as we may, 
practically we shall do very little for it unless we are 
made to think we are, at the same time, doing some- 
thing for ourselves. 

"What an ignorance of human nature does it exhibit 
to ask or expect a whole community to rise up and 
labor for the temporal happiness of others, after them- 
selves shall be consigned to the dust, when a majority 
of this community take no pains whatever to secure 
their own eternal welfare! Great distance in either 
time or space has wonderful power to lull and render 
quiescent the human mind. Pleasures to be enjoyed, 
or pains to be endured, after we shall be dead and 
gone, are but little regarded, even in our own cases, 
and much less in the case of others. 



306 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

"Still, in addition to this, there is something so 
ludicrous in promises of good or threats of evil a great 
way off, as to render the whole subject with which they 
are connected easily turned to ridicule. 'Better lay 
down that spade you're stealing, Paddy — if you don't 
you'll pay for it at the day of judgment.' 'By the 
powers, if ye'll credit me so long, I'll take another 
jist.' 

"By the Washingtonians this system of consigning 
the habitual drunkard to hopeless ruin is repudiated. 
They adopt a more enlarged philanthropy. They go 
for present as well as for future good. They labor for 
all now living, as well as hereafter to live. They 
teach hope to all — despair to none. As applying to 
their cause, they deny the doctrine of unpardonable 
sin. As in Christianity, it is taught, so in this they 
teach : 

" 'While the lamp holds out to burn, 
The vilest sinner may return.' 

"And, that which is a matter of most profound con- 
gratulation, is the fact that they, by experiment upon 
experiment, and example upon example, prove the 
maxim to be no less true in the one case than in the 
other. On every hand we behold those who but yes- 
terday were the chief of sinners, now the chief apostles 
of the cause. Drunken devils are cast out by ones, 
by sevens, by legions, and their unfortunate victims, 
like the poor possessed who was redeemed from his 
long and lonely wandering in the tomb, are publishing 
to the ends of the earth how great things have been 
done for them. 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 307 

"To these new champions and this new system of 
tactics our late success is mainly owing, and to them 
we must mainly look for the final consummation. The 
ball is now rolling gloriously on, and none are so able 
as they to increase its speed and its bulk, to add to its 
momentum and magnitude. Even though unlearned in 
letters, for this task none are so well educated. To fit 
them for this work they have been taught in the true 
school. They have been in that gulf from which they 
would teach others the means of escape. They have 
passed that prison wall which others have long 
declared impassable, and who that has not, shall dare 
to weigh opinions with them as to the mode of 
passing? 

"But if it be true, as I have insisted, that those who 
have suffered by intemperance personally and have 
reformed are the most powerful and efficient instru- 
ments to push the reformation to ultimate success, it 
does not follow that those who have not suffered have 
no part left them to perform. Whether or not the 
world would be vastly benefited by total and final ban- 
ishment from it of all intoxicating drinks seems to 
me not now an open question. Three-fourths of 
mankind confess the affirmative with their tongues, 
and I believe all the rest acknowledge it in their 
hearts. 

"Ought any, then, to refuse their aid in doing what 
the good of the whole demands? Shall he who cannot 
do much be for that reason excused if he do nothing? 
'But,' says one, 'what good can I do by signing the 
pledge? I never drink, even without signing.' This 
question has already been asked and answered more 
than a million times. Let it be answered once more. 



308 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

For the man, suddenly or in any other way, to break 
off from the use of drams, who has indulged in them 
for a long course of years, and until his appetite has 
grown ten or a hundred fold stronger and more craving 
than any natural appetite can be, requires a most 
powerful moral effort. In such an undertaking, he 
needs every moral support and influence that can pos- 
sibly be brought to his aid and thrown around him. 
And not only so, but every moral prop should be taken 
from whatever argument might rise in his mind to lure 
him to his backsliding. When he casts his eyes around 
him, he should be able to see all that he respects, all 
that he admires, all that he loves, kindly and anxiously 
pointing him onward and none beckoning him back to 
his former miserable 'wallowing in the mire.' 

"But it is said by some that men will think and act 
for themselves; that none will disuse spirits or any- 
thing else because his neighbors do ; and that moral 
influence is not that powerful engine contended for. 
Let us examine this. Let me ask the man who would 
maintain this position most stiffly what compensation 
he will accept to go to church some Sunday and sit 
during the sermon with his wife's bonnet upon his 
head? Not a trifle, I'll venture. And why not? 
There would be nothing irreligious in it, nothing 
immoral, nothing uncomfortable — then, why not? Is 
it not because there would be something cgregiously 
unfashionable in it? Then it is the influence of fash- 
ion; and what is the influence of fashion but the influ- 
ence that other people's actions have on our own 
actions — the strong inclination each of us feels to do as 
we see all of our neighbors do? Nor is the influence 
of fashion confined to any particular thing or class of 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 309 

things. It is just as strong on one subject as another. 
Let us make it as unfashionable to withhold our 
names from the temperance pledge as for husbands 
to wear their wives' bonnets to church, and the 
instances will be just as rare in the one case as the 
other. 

" 'But,' some say, 'we are no drunkards, and we 
shall not acknowledge ourselves such by joining a 
reformed drunkards' society, whatever our influence 
might be.' Surely, no Christian will adhere to this 
objection. 

"If they believe as they profess, that Omnipotence 
condescended to take on Himself the form of sinful 
man, and as such to die an ignominious death for their 
sakes, surely they will not refuse submission to the 
infinitely lesser condescension for the temporal and 
perhaps eternal salvation of a large, erring, and unfor- 
tunate class of their fellow creatures. Nor is the con- 
descension very great. In my judgment such of us as 
have never fallen victims have been spared more from 
the absence of appetites than from any mental or moral 
superiority over those who have. Indeed, I believe, 
if we take habitual drunkards as a class, their heads 
and their hearts will bear an advantageous comparison 
with those of any other class. 

"There seems to have ever been a proneness in the 
brilliant and warm-blooded to fall into this vice — the 
demon of intemperance ever seems to have delighted 
in sucking the blood of genius and generosity. What 
one of us but can call to mind some relative more 
promising in youth than all his fellows, who has fallen 
a sacrifice to his rapacity? He ever seems to have 
gone forth like the Egyptian angel of death, commis- 



310 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

sioned to slay, if not the first, the fairest born of every 
family. Shall he now be arrested in his desolating 
career? In that arrest all can give aid that will, and 
who shall be excused that can and will not? Far 
around as human breath has ever blown, he keeps our 
fathers, our brothers, our sons, and our friends pros- 
trate in the chains of moral death. To all the living 
everywhere we cry: 'Come, sound the moral trump, 
that these may rise and stand up an exceeding great 
army.' 'Come from the four winds, O Breath! and 
breathe upon these slain, that they may live.' If the 
relative grandeur of revolutions shall be estimated by 
the great amount of human misery they alleviate, and 
the small amount they inflict, then, indeed, will this be 
the grandest the world has ever seen. 

"Of our political revolution of 1776, we are all justly 
proud. It has given us a degree of political freedom 
far exceeding that of any other nation of the earth. 
In it the world has found a solution of the long-mooted 
problem as to the capability of man to govern himself. 
In it was the germ that has vegetated, and still is to 
grow and expand into the universal liberty of mankind. 

"But with all these glorious results, past, present, 
and to come, it has its evils. It breathed forth famine, 
swam in blood, and rode in fire; and long, and long 
after, the orphan's cry and the widow's wail continued 
to break the sad silence that ensued. These were the 
, the inevitable price, paid for the blessing it 

bought 

"Turn now to the temperance revolution. In it we 
shall find a stronger bondage broken, a viler slavery 
manumitted, a greater tyrant deposed — in it, more of 
want supplied, more disease healed, more sorrow 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 311 

assuaged. By it, no orphans starving, no widows 
weeping; by it, none wounded in feeling, none injured 
in interest. Even the dram-maker and seller will 
have glided into other occupations so gradually as 
never to have felt the change, and will stand ready to 
join all others in the universal song of gladness. And 
what a noble ally this to the cause of political feeling; 
with such an aid, its march cannot fail to be on and on, 
till every son of earth shall drink in rich fruition the 
sorrow-quenching draughts of perfect liberty ! Happy 
day, when, all appetite controlled, all passion subdued, 
all matter subjugated, mind, all- conquering mind, 
shall live and move, the monarch of the world ! Glor- 
ious consummation! Hail, fall of fury! Reign of 
reason, all hail! 

"And when the victory shall be complete — when 
there shall be neither a slave nor a drunkard on the 
earth — how proud the title of that land, which may 
truly claim to be the birthplace and the cradle of both 
those revolutions that shall have ended in that victory! 
How nobly distinguished that people who shall have 
planted and nurtured to maturity both the political and 
moral freedom of their species ! 

"This is the one hundred and tenth anniversary of 
the birthday of Washington. We are met to celebrate 
this day. Washington is the mightiest name of earth 
— long since mightiest in the cause of civil liberty, still 
mightiest in moral reformation. On that name a 
eulogy is expected. It cannot be. To add brightness 
to the sun or glory to the name of Washington is alike 
impossible. Let none attempt it. In solemn awe 
pronounce the name, and in its naked, deathless 
splendor leave it shining on." 



3 ia LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

THE BALLOT VS. THE BULLET. 
Delivered to a delegation at Springfield, 111., that 
proposed to visit Kansas Territory in the physical 
defense of freedom, in 1856. Hon. W. H. Herndon 
was in this delegation: 

"Friends: I agree with you in Providence. I believe 
in the providence of most men, the largest purse, and 
the longest cannon. You are in the minority — in a 
sad minority; and you can't hope to succeed, reason- 
ing from all human experience. You would rebel 
against the Government, and redden your hands in the 
blood of your countrymen. If you are in the minority, 
as you are, you can't succeed. I say again and again, 
against the Government, with a great majority of its 
best citizens backing it, and when they have the most 
men, the longest purse, and the biggest cannon, you 
can't succeed. If you have the majority, as some say 
you have, you can succeed with the ballot, throwing 
away the bullet. You can peaceably then redeem the 
eminent, and preserve the liberties of mankind, 
through your votes and voice and moral influence. 

"Lit there be peace. In a democracy, where a 

majority rule by the ballot through the forms of law, 

e physical rebellions and bloody resistances are 

ally wrong, unconstitutional, and are treason. 

the ills you have than to fly to those you 

kn<>\v not 1 • Our own Declaration of Independence 

that the government long established, for trivial 

I not l>e resisted. Revolutionize through 

tin- ballot-box, and restore the government once more 

to the ami hearts Of men, by making it 

dspn ' was intended to do, the highest spirit of 

justice and liberty. 




'AND COULDN'T YE PUT A LITTLE BRANDY IN ALL UNBEKNOWN TO 

MYSELF?" 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 315 

"Your attempt, if there be such, to resist the laws 
of Kansas by force, is criminal and wicked; and all 
your feeble attempts will be follies, and end in bring- 
ing sorrow on your heads, and ruin the cause you 
would freely die to preserve." 



LINCOLN'S FIRST SPEECH IN THE SENATORIAL 

CAMPAIGN— "THE HOUSE-DIVIDED-AGAINST- 

ITSELF SPEECH." 

Delivered at Springfield, 111., June 6, 1858, before 
the Republican State Convention. It is known as one 
of Lincoln's greatest speeches: 

"Gentlemen of the Convention: If we could first 
know where we are, and whither we are tending, we 
could better judge what to do, and how to do it. We 
are now far into the fifth year, since a policy was 
initiated with the avowed object and confident promise 
of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the 
operation of that policy, that agitation has not ceased, 
but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will 
not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and 
passed. 'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' 
I believe this Government cannot endure permanently 
half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to 
be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I 
do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become 
all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents 
of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and 



3 i6 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief 
that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its 
advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike 
lawful in all the States, old as well as new — North as 
well as South. 

"Have we no tendency to the latter condition? 

"Let any one who doubts, carefully contemplate that 
now almost complete legal combination — piece of 
machinery, so to speak — compounded of the Nebraska 
doctrine and the Dred Scott decision. Let him con- 
sider not only what work the machinery is adapted to 
do, and how well adapted; but also let him study the 
history of its construction, and trace, if he can, or 
rather fail, if he can, to trace the evidence of design 
and concert of action among its chief architects, from 
the beginning. 

A FEW IMPORTANT FACTS. 

"The year of 1844 found slavery excluded from more 
than half the States by State Constitutions, and from 
most of the national territory by Congressional prohi- 
bition. Pour days later commenced the struggle which 
ended in repealing that Congressional prohibition. 
This opened all the national territory to slavery, and 
was the first point gained. 

"But, so far, Congress had acted; and an indorse- 
ment by the people, real or apparent, was indispen- 
the point already gained, and give chance 

"This ty had not been overlooked; but had 

provided for, as well as might be, in the notable 

argument of 'squatter sovereignty,' otherwise called 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 317 

'sacred right of self-government,' which latter phrase, 
though expressive of the only rightful basis of any 
government, was so perverted in this attempted use 
of it as to amount to just this: 

"That, if any one man choose to enslave another, no 
third man shall be allowed to object. That argument 
was incorporated into the Nebraska bill itself, in the 
language which follows: 

" 'It being the true intent and meaning of this act 
not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor 
to exclude it therefrom; but to leave the people 
thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their 
domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to 
the Constitution of the United States.' 

"Then opened the roar of loose declamation in favor 
of 'squatter sovereignty,' and 'sacred right of self- 
government.' 'But,' said opposition members, 'let us 
amend the bill so as to expressly declare that the 
people of the territory may exclude slavery.' 'Not 
we, ' said the friends of the measure ; and down they 
voted the amendment. 

"While the Nebraska bill was passing through Con- 
gress, a law case involving the question of a negro's 
freedom, by reason of his owner having voluntarily 
taken him first into a free State and then into a Terri- 
tory covered by the Congressional prohibition, and held 
him as a slave for a long time in each, was passing 
through the United States District Court for the district 
of Missouri ; and both Nebraska bill and law suit were 
brought to a decision in the same month of May, 1854. 
The negro's name was 'Dred Scott,' which name now 
designates the decision finally made in the case. 

"Before the then next Presidential election, the case 



3 i8 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

came to, and was argued in, the Supreme Court of the 
United States, but the decision of it was deferred until 
after the election. 

"Still, before the election, Mr. Trumbull, on the 
floor of the Senate, requested the leading advocate of 
the Nebraska Bill to state his opinion whether the 
people of a territory can constitutionally exclude slav- 
ery from their limits; and the latter answers: 'That is 
a question for the Supreme Court. ' 

"The election came. Mr. Buchanan was elected, 
and the endorsement, such as it was, secured. That 
was the second point gained. The endorsement, how- 
ever, fell short of a clear popular majority of nearly 
four hundred thousand votes, and so, perhaps, was not 
overwhelmingly reliable and satisfactory. The out- 
going President, in the last annual message, as 
impressively as possible echoed back upon the people 
the weight and authority of the endorsement. The 
Supreme Court met again; did not announce their 
decision, but ordered a re-argument. The next Presi- 
dential inauguration came, and still no decision of the 
court; but the incoming President in his inaugural 
address fervently exhorted the people to abide by the 
forthcoming decision, whatever it might be. Then, 
in a few days, came the decision. 

"The reputed author of the Nebraska bill finds an 
early n to make a speech at this capital indors- 

tt decision, and vehemently denounc- 
ing all opposition to it. The new President, too, 
arly occasion of the Sillman letter to 
indorse and strongly commend that decision, and to 
express his astonishment that any different view had 
: been entertained. 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 319 

VOTING IT UP OR DOWN. 

"At length a squabble sprang up between the Presi- 
dent and the author of the Nebraska bill, on the mere 
question of fact, whether the Lecompton Constitution 
was or was not, in any just sense, made by the people 
of Kansas; and in that quarrel the latter declares that 
all he wants is a fair vote for the people, and that he 
cares not whether slavery be voted down or up. I do 
not understand his declaration that he cares not 
whether slavery be voted down or up to be intended 
by him other than an apt definition of the policy he 
would impress upon the public mind — the principle for 
which he declares he has suffered so much, and is ready 
to suffer to the end. And well may he cling to that 
principle. If he has any parental feelings, well may 
he cling to it. That principle is the only shred left of 
his original Nebraska doctrine. 

"Under the Dred Scott decision squatter sover- 
eignty squatted out of existence, tumbled down like 
temporary scaffolding — like the mould at the foundry, 
served through one blast and fell back into loose sand 
— helped to carry an election and then was kicked to 
the winds. His late joint struggle with the Repub- 
licans, against the Lecompton Constitution, involves 
nothing of the original Nebraska doctrine. That 
struggle was made on a point — the right of the people 
to make their own constitution — upon which he and the 
Republicans have never differed. 

"The several points of the Dred Scott decision, in 
connection with Senator Douglas' care-not policy, 
constitute the piece of machinery, in its present state 
of advancement. This was the third point gained. 



3 2o LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

WORKING POINTS. 

"The working points of that machinery are: 

"First. That no negro slave, imported as such from 
Africa, and no descendant of such slave, can ever be a 
citizen of any State, in the sense of that term as used 
in the Constitution of the United States. This point 
is made in order to deprive the negro, in every possible 
event, of the benefit of that provision of the United 
States Constitution which declares that 'the citizens of 
each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and 
immunities of citizens in the several States.' 

"Secondly. That, 'subject to the Constitution of the 
United States,' neither Congress nor a Territorial Leg- 
islature can exclude slavery from any United States 
territory. This point is made in order that individual 
men may fill up the Territories with slaves, without 
danger of losing them as property, and thus to 
enhance the chances of permanency to the institutions 
through all the future. 

"Thirdly. That, whether the holding of the negro 
in actual slavery in a free State makes him free, as 
against the holder, the United States courts will not 
decide, but will leave to be decided by the courts of any 
slave State the negro may be forced into by the master. 

"This point is made, not to be pressed immediately, 
but, if acquiesced in for a while, and apparently 
indorsed by the people at an election, then, to sustain 
the logical conclusion that what Dred Scott's master 
might lawfully do with Dred Scott, in the free State of 
Illinois, every other master may lawfully do with any 
other one, or one thousand slaves, in any other free 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES 321 

"Auxiliary to all this, and working hand in hand 
with it, the Nebraska doctrine, or what is left of it, is 
to educate and mold public opinion, at least northern 
public opinion, not to care whether slavery is voted 
down or up. This shows exactly where we now are; 
and partially, also, whither we are tending. 



A STRING OF HISTORICAL FACTS. 

"It will throw additional light on the latter, to go 
back and run the mind over the string of historical 
facts already stated. Several things will now appear 
less dark and mysterious than they did when they were 
transpiring. The people were to be left 'perfectly 
free, ' subject only to the Constitution. 

"What the Constitution had to do with it outsiders 
could not then see. Plainly enough, now, it was an 
exactly fitted niche, for the Dred Scott decision to 
afterward come in, and declare the perfect freedom of 
the people to be just no freedom at all. Why was the 
amendment, expressly "declaring the right of the 
people, voted down? Plain enough now; the adoption 
of it would have spoiled the niche for the Dred Scott 
decision. Why was the court decision held up. Why 
even a Senator's individual opinion withheld, till after 
the presidential election? Plainly enough now; the 
speaking out then would have damaged the perfectly 
free argument upon which the election was to be 
carried. Why the outgoing President's felicitation on 
the indorsement? Why the delay of a re-argument? 
Why the incoming President's advance exhortation in 
favor of the decision? These things look like the 



322 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

cautious patting and petting of a spirited horse 
preparatory to mounting him, when it is dreaded that 
he may give the rider a fall. And why the hasty 
after-indorsement of the decision by the President and 
others? 

"We cannot absolutely know that all these exact 
adaptations are the result of preconcert. But when 
we see a lot of framed timbers, different portions of 
which we know have been gotten out at different times 
and places by different workmen — Stephen, Franklin, 
Roger, and James, for instance — and when we see 
these timbers joined together, and see they exactly 
make the frame of a house or mill, all the tenons and 
mortices exactly adapted, and all the lengths and pro- 
portions of the different pieces exactly adapted to their 
respective places, and not a piece too many or too few 
— not omitting even scaffolding — or, if a single piece 
be lacking, we see the place in the frame, exactly 
fitted and prepared yet to bring such a piece in — in 
such a case, we find it impossible not to believe that 
Stephen and Franklin and Roger and James all under- 
stood one another from the beginning, and all worked 
upon a common plan or draft drawn before the first 
blow was struck. 

POWER OF A STATE. 

"It should not be overlooked, that, by the Nebraska 
bill, the people of a State as well as Territory, were to 
be kft 'perfectly free, subject only to the Constitution." 
Why mention a State? They were legislating for Terri- 
tories, and not for or about States. 

"Certainly, the people of a State are, or ought to be, 
subject to the Constitution of the United States; but 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 323 

why is mention of this lugged into this merely terri- 
torial law? But why are the people of a Territory and 
the people of a State therein lumped together, and 
their relation to the Constitution therein treated as 
being precisely the same? While the opinions of the 
court, by Chief Justice Taney, in the Dred Scott case, 
and the separate opinions of all the concurring judges, 
expressly declare that the Constitution of the United 
States neither permits Congress nor a Territorial Legis- 
lature to exclude slavery from any United States Ter- 
ritory, they all omit to declare whether or not the same 
Constitution permits a State, or the people of a State, 
to exclude it. 

"Possibly, that is a mere omission; but who can be 
quite sure, if McLean or Curtis had sought to get into 
the opinion a declaration of unlimited power in the 
people of a State to exclude slavery from their limits, 
just as Chase and Mace sought to get such declaration, 
in behalf of the people of a Territory, into the 
Nebraska bill; I ask, who can be quite sure that it 
would not have been voted down in the one case as it 
has been in the other? 

"The nearest approach to the point of [declaring the 
power of a State over slavery, is made by Judge Nel- 
son. He approaches it more than once, using the 
precise idea and almost the language, too, of the 
Nebraska act. On one occasion, his exact language is, 
'Except in cases where the power is restrained by the 
Constitution of the United States, the law of the State 
is supreme over the subject of slavery within its juris- 
diction.' 

"In what cases the power of the States is so 
restrained by the United States Constitution is left an 



3 2 4 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

open question, precisely as the same question as to the 
restraint on the power of the Territories was left open 
in the Nebraska act. Put this and that together, and 
we have another nice little niche, which we may, ere 
long, see filled with another Supreme Court decision, 
declaring that the Constitution of the United States 
does not permit a State to exclude slavery from its 
limits. And this may especially be expected if the 
doctrine of 'care not whether slavery be voted down or 
up' shall gain upon the public mind sufficiently to give 
promise that such a decision can be maintained when 
made. 

"Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks of 
being alike lawful in all the States. Welcome or 
unwelcome, such a decision is probably coming, and 
will soon be upon us, unless the power of the present 
political dynasty shall be met and overthrown. We 
shall lie down pleasantly dreaming that the people of 
uri are on the very verge of making their State 
and we shall wake to the reality instead, that the 
Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave State. To 
meet and overthrow the power of that dynasty, is the 
now before all those who would prevent that con- 
summation. That is what we have to do. How can 
we best do it? 

• A LIVING DOG IS BETTER THAN A DEAD LION." 

"There are those who denounce us openly to their 
friends, and yet whisper us softly that Senator Douglas 
is the aptest instrument there is with which to ellect 
that They wish us to infer all from the fact 

that he now has a little quarrel with the present head 
of the dynasty; and that he has regularly voted with 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 325 

us on a single point, upon which he and we have never 
differed. They remind us that he is a great man, and 
that the largest of us are very small ones. Let this be 
granted. But 'a living dog is better than a dead lion,' 
for this work, is, at least, a caged and toothless one. 
How can he oppose the advances of slavery? He don't 
care anything about it. His avowed mission is 
impressing the 'public heart' to care nothing about it. 
"A leading Douglas Democratic newspaper, treating 
upon this subject, thinks Douglas's superior talent will 
be needed to resist the revival of the African slave 
trade. Does Douglas believe an effort to revive that 
trade is approaching? He has not said so. Does he 
really think so? But, if it is, how can he resist it? 
For years he has labored to prove it a sacred right of 
white men to take negro slaves into the new Terri- 
tories. Can he possibly show that it is less a sacred 
right to buy them where they can be bought the cheap- 
est? And unquestionably they can be bought cheaper 
in Africa than Virginia. He has done all in his power 
to reduce the whole question of slavery to one of a 
mere right of property; and, as such, how can he 
oppose the foreign slave trade — how can he refuse 
that trade in that 'property' shall be 'perfectly 
free' — unless he does it as a protection to the home 
production? And as the home producers will probably 
not ask the protection, he will be wholly without a 
ground of opposition. 

DOUGLAS IS NOT WITH US. 

"Senator Douglas holds, we know, that a man may 
rightfully be wiser to-day than he was yesterday— that 



326 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

he may rightfully change when he finds himself wrong. 
But can we, for that reason, run ahead; and infer that 
he will make any particular change of which he him- 
self has given no intimation? Can we safely base our 
actions upon any such vague reference? Now, as ever, 
I wish not to misrepresent Judge Douglas's position, 
question his motives, or do aught that can be personally 
offensive to him. Whenever, if ever, he and we can 
come together on principle so that our cause may have 
assistance from his great ability, I hope to have inter- 
posed no adventitious obstacle. But, clearly, he is not 
now with us — he does not pretend to be — he does not 
pretend ever to be. 



BUT WE SHALL NOT FAIL; THE VICTORY IS SURE. 

"Our cause, then, must be intrusted to, and con- 
ducted by, its own undoubted friends — those whose 
hands are free, whose hearts are in the work — who do 
care for the result. Two years ago the Republicans 
of the nation mustered over thirteen thousand strong. 
We did this under the single impulse of resistance to a 
common danger, with every external circumstance 
against us. Of strange, discordant, and even hostile 
elements, we gathered from the four winds, and 
formed and fought the battle through, under the con- 
stant hot fire of a disciplined, prpud and pampered 
enemy. Did we brave all then, to falter now? now, 
when that Bame enemy is wavering, dissevered and 
belligerent? The result is not doubtful. We shall not 
if we stand linn, we shall not fail. Wise counsels 
elerate, or mistakes delay it, but, sooner or 
P, the victory is sure to come." 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 327 

DOUGLAS'S SEVEN QUESTIONS — LINCOLN'S POSI- 
TION DEFINED ON THE QUESTIONS OF 
THE DAY. 

Delivered at Freeport, 111., July, 1858: 

"Ladies and Gentlemen: On Saturday last, Judge 
Douglas and myself first met in public discussion. 
He spoke an hour, I an hour and a half, and he replied 
for half an hour. The order is now reversed 1 ;im 
to speak an hour, he an hour and a half, and then I 
to reply for half an hour. I propose to devote in 
during the first hour to the scope of what was bn m 
within the range of his half-hour's speech at O . 
Of course, there was brought within the scope of : 
half-hour's speech something of his own opening 
speech. In the course of that opening argument 
Judge Douglas proposed to me seven different interrog- 
atories. 

"In my speech of an hour and a half, I attended to 
some other parts of his speech ; and incidentally, as I 
thought, answered one of the interrogatories then. 
I then distinctly intimated to him that I would answer 
the rest of his interrogatories on condition only that he 
should agree to answer as many for me. He made no 
intimation at the time of the proposition, nor did he in 
his reply allude at all to that suggestion of mine. I do 
him no injustice in saying that he occupied at least 
half of his reply in dealing with me as though I had 
refused to answer his interrogatories. I now propose 
that I will answer any of the interrogatories upon con- 
dition that he will answer questions from me not 
exceeding the same number. I give him an oppor- 
tunity to respond. I now say that I will answer his 
interrogatories whether he answers mine or not 



328 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

[applause]; and that after I have done so, I will pro- 
pound mine to him. [Applause.] 

"I have supposed myself, since the organization of 
the Republican party at Bloomington, in May, 1856, 
bound as a party man of the platform of the party, 
then and since. If in any interrogatories which I 
shall answer I go beyond the scope of what is in these 
platforms, it will be perceived that no one is respon- 
sible but myself. 

"Having said this much, I will take up the Judge's 
interrogatories as I find them in the Chicago Times, 
and answer them seriatim. In order that there may 
be no mistake about it, I have copied the interroga- 
tories in writing, and also my answers to them. The 
first one of these interrogatories is in these words: 

"Q. 1. 'I desire to know whether Lincoln to-day 
stands, as he did in 1854, in favor of the unconditional 
repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law?' 

"A. I do not now, nor never did, stand in favor 
of the unconditional repeal of the Fugitive Slave 
Law. 

"Q. 2. 'I desire him to answer whether he stands 
pledged to-day, as he did in 1854, against any more 
slave States coming into the Union, even if the people 
want them?' 

"A. I do not now, nor never did, stand pledged 
against the admission of any more slave States into the 

Union. 

" ( J 3, 'I want to know whether he stands pledged 
against the admission of a new State into the Union 
with sm h a Constitution as the people of that State 

may see fit tO make?' 

"A. I do not stand against the admission of a new 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 329 

State into the Union with such a Constitution as the 
people of that State may see fit to make. 

"Q. 4. 'I want to know whether he stands to-day 
pledged to the abolition of slavery in the District of 
Columbia?' 

"A. I do not stand to-day pledged to the abolition 
of slavery in the District of Columbia. 

"Q. 5. 'I desire him to answer whether he stands 
pledged to the prohibition of the slave trade between 
the different States?' 

"A. I do not stand pledged to the prohibition of 
the slave trade between the different States. 

"Q. 6. 4 I desire to know whether he stands pledged 
to prohibit slavery in all the Territories of the United 
States, North as well as South of the Missouri Com- 
promise line?' 

"A. I am impliedly, if not expressedly, pledged to a 
belief in the right and duty of Congress to prohibit 
slavery in the United States Territories. [Great 
applause.] 

"Q. 7. 4 I desire to know whether he is opposed to 
the acquisition of any new territory unless slavery is 
first prohibited therein?' 

"A. I am not generally opposed to honest acquisition 
of territory ; and, in any given case, I would or would 
not oppose such acquisition, accordingly as I might 
think such acquisition would or would not agitate the 
slavery question among ourselves. 

"Now, my friends, it will be perceived upon exam- 
ination of these questions and answers, that so far I 
have only answered that I was not pledged to that or 
the other thing. The Judge has not framed his inter- 
rogatories to ask me anything more than this, and I 



330 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

have answered in strict accordance with his inter- 
rogatories, and have answered truly that I am not 
pledged at all upon any of the points to which I have 
answered. But I am not disposed to hang upon the 
exact form of his interrogatory. I am rather disposed 
to take up at least some of these questions, and state 
what I really think upon them. 

LINCOLN'S POSITION MORE FULLY DEFINED. 

"As to the first one, in regard to the Fugitive Slave 
Law, I have never hesitated to say, that I think, under 
the Constitution of the United States, the people of the 
Southern States are entitled to a Congressional slave 
law. Having said that, I have nothing to say in regard 
to the existing Fugitive Slave Law, farther than that I 
think it should have been framed so as to be free from 
some of the objections that pertain to it, without 
lessening its efficiency. And, inasmuch, as we are not 
in agitation upon the general question of slavery. 

"In regard to the other question, of whether I am 
pledged to the admission of any more slave States into 
the Union, I state to you frankly that I would be 
exceedingly sorry ever to be put in a position of hav- 
ing to puss upon that question. I should be exceed- 
ingly glad to know that there would never be another 
slave vSt.ite admitted into the Union; but I must add, 
that it' slavery shall be kept out of the Territories dur- 
ing tlie Territorial existence of any one given Terri- 
tory, and then the people shall, having a fair chance in 
a clear field, when they come to adopt the Constitution, 
do such an extraordinary thing as to adopt the Consti- 
tution, uninfluenced by the actual presence of the 
institution among them, I see no alternative, if we own 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 331 

the country, but to admit them into the Union. [Ap- 
plause.] 

"The third interrogatory is answered by the answer to 
the second, it being, as I conceive, the same as the second. 

"The fourth one is in regard to the abolition of slav- 
ery in the District of Columbia. In relation to that, I 
have my mind very distinctly made up. I should be 
exceedingly glad to see slavery abolished in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia. I believe that Congress has Con- 
stitutional power to abolish it. Yet, as a member of 
Congress, I should not with my present views be in 
favor of endeavoring to abolish slavery in the District 
of Columbia, unless it would be upon these conditions. 
First, that the abolition should be gradual; second, 
that it should be on a vote of the majority of qualified 
voters of the District; and third, that a compensa- 
tion should be made to unwilling owners. With these 
three conditions, I confess that I would be exceedingly 
glad to see Congress abolish slavery in the District of 
Columbia, and, in the language of Henry Clay, 'sweep 
from our Capital that foul blot upon our Nation. ' 

"In regard to the fifth interrogatory, I must say, that, 
as to the question of abolition of the slave trade between 
the different States, I can truly answer, as I have, that 
I am pledged to nothing about it. It is a subject to 
which I have not given that mature consideration that 
would make me feel authorized to state a position so as 
to hold myself entirely bound by it. In other words, 
that question has never been prominently enough 
before me to induce me to investigate whether we 
really have the constitutional power to do it. I could 
investigate if I had sufficient time to bring myself to a 
conclusion upon that subject; but I have not done so, 



332 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

and I say so frankly to you here, and to Judge Douglas. 
I must say, however, that if I should be of the opinion 
that Congress does possess the Constitutional power to 
abolish slave trading among the different States, I 
should not still be in favor of that power unless upon 
some conservative principle, as I conceive it, akin to 
what I have said in relation to the abolition of slavery 
in the District of Columbia. 

"My answer as to whether I desire that slavery 
should be prohibited in all Territories of the United 
States, is full and explicit within itself, and cannot be 
made clearer by any comment of mine. So I suppose, 
in regard to the question whether I am opposed to the 
acquisition of any more territory unless slavery is 
abolished, is such that I could add nothing by way of 
illustration, or making myself better understood, than 
the answer which I have placed in writing. 

"Now, in all this, the Judge has me, and he has me 
on the record. I suppose he had flattered himself that 
I was really entertaining one set of opinions for one 
place and another set for another place — that I was 
afraid to say at one time what I uttered at another. 
What I am saying here I suppose I say to a vast audi' 
cull- in the State of Illinois, and I believe I am saying 
that which, if it would be offensive to any persons and 
render them enemies to myself, would be offensive to 
persons in this audience." 



A HUMOROUS SPEECH - LINCOLN IN THE BLACK 
HAWK WAR. 

The friends -if General CaSB, when that gentleman 
was a candidate tot the Presidency, endeavored to 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 333 

endow him with a military reputation. Mr. Lincoln, 
at that time a representative in Congress, delivered a 
speech before the House, which, in its allusion to Mr. 
Cass, was exquisitely sarcastic and irresistibly humor- 
ous: 

"By the way, Mr. Speaker," said Mr. Lincoln, "do 
you know I am a military hero? Yes, sir, in the days 
of the Black Hawk War, I fought, bled, and came 
away. Speaking of General Cass's career reminds me 
of my own. I was not at Stillman's defeat, but I was 
about as near it as Cass to Hull's surrender; and like 
him I saw the place very soon afterwards. It is 
quite certain I did not break my sword, for I had none 
to break, but I bent my musket pretty badly on one 
occasion. ... If General Cass went in advance of me 
picking whortleberries, I guess I surpassed him in 
charging upon the wild onion. If he saw any live, 
fighting Indians, it was more than I did, but I had a 
good many bloody struggles with the mosquitoes, and 
although I never fainted from loss of blood, I can truly 
say that I was often very hungry. ' ' 

Mr. Lincoln concluded by saying that if he ever 
turned Democrat and should run for the Presidency, 
he hoped they would not make fun of him by attempt- 
ing to make him a military hero ! 



JOINT DEBATE BETWEEN MR. DOUGLAS AND MR. 

LINCOLN. 

First Joint Debate at Ottawa, August 21, /SjS. 

MR. DOUGLAS'S SPEECH. 

"Ladies and Gentlemen: I appear before you to-day 
for the purpose of discussing the leading political 
topics which now agitate the public mind. 



334 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

"By an arrangement between Mr. Lincoln and 
myself, we are present here to-day for the purpose of 
having a joint discussion, as the representatives of the 
two great parties of the State and Union, upon the 
principles in issue between these parties; and this vast 
concourse of people shows the deep feeling which per- 
vades the public mind in regard to the questions divid- 
ing us. 

"Prior to 1854 this country was divided into two great 
political parties known as the Whig and Democratic 
parties. Both were national and patriotic, advocated 
principles that were universal in their application. 

"An old-line Whig could proclaim his principles in 
Louisiana and Massachusetts alike. Whig principles 
had no boundary sectional line — they were not limited 
by the Ohio River, nor by the Potomac, nor by the 
line of the free and slave States, but applied and were 
proclaimed wherever the Constitution ruled, or the 
American flag waved over the American soil. So it 
was, and so it is with the great Democratic party, 
which, from the days of Jefferson until this period, has 
proved itself to be the historic party of this nation. 

"While the Whig and Democratic parties differed in 
regard to a bank, the tariff distribution, the specie 
circular and the sub-treasury, they agreed on the great 
slavery question, which now agitates the Union. 

"I say that the Whig party and the Democratic party 
Agreed <>n this slavery question, while they differed on 
those matters of expediency to which I have referred. 

"The Whig party and the Democratic party adopted 
the Compromise measures of 1S50 as the basis of a 
proper and just solution of the slavery question in all 
its forms. 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 335 

"Clay was the great leader, with Webster on his 
right and Cass on his left, and sustained by the 
patriots in the Whig and Democratic ranks, who had 
devised and enacted the Compromise measure of 1850. 

"In 1851 the Whig party and the Democratic party 
united in Illinois in adopting resolutions indorsing and 
approving the principles of the Compromise measure 
of 1850 as the proper adjustment of that question. 

"In 1852, when the Whig party assembled in conven- 
tion in Baltimore for the purpose of nominating a can- 
didate for the Presidency, the first thing it did was to 
declare the Compromise measure of 1850, in substance 
and in principle, a suitable adjustment of that ques- 
tion. [Applause.] My friends, silence will be more 
acceptable to me in the discussion of these questions 
than applause. I desire to address myself to your 
judgment, your understanding, and your consciences, 
and not to your passion or your enthusiasm. 

"When the Democratic Convention assembled in 
Baltimore in the same year, for the purpose of nomi- 
nating a Democratic candidate for the Presidency, it 
also adopted the Compromise measure of 1850 as the 
basis of Democratic action. Thus you see, that up to 
1853-54, the Whig party and the Democratic party 
both stood on the same platform with regard to the 
slavery question. That platform was the right of the 
people of each State and each Territory to decide their 
local and domestic institutions for themselves, subject 
only to the Federal Constitution. During the session 
of Congress of 1853-54, I introduced into the Senate of 
the United States a bill to organize the Territories of 
Kansas and Nebraska on that principle which had been 
adopted in the Compromise measure of 1850, approved 



336 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

by the Whig party and the Democratic party in Illinois 
in 1 85 1, and endorsed by the Whig party and the 
Democratic party in National Convention in 1852. In 
order that there might be no misunderstanding in rela- 
tion to the principle involved in the Kansas and 
Nebraska bill, I put forth the true intent and meaning 
of the act in these words: 'It is the true intent and 
meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any 
State or Territory, or to exclude it therefrom, but to 
leave the people perfectly free to form and regulate 
their domestic institutions in their own way, subject to 
the Federal Constitution.' 

"Thus, you see, that in 1854, when the Kansas and 
Nebraska bill was brought into Congress for the pur- 
pose of carrying over the principles which both parties 
had up to that time endorsed and approved, there had 
been no division in this country in regard to that prin- 
ciple except the opposition of the Abolitionists. In 
the House of Representatives of the Illinois Legis- 
lature, upon a resolution asserting that principle, every 
Whig and every Democrat # in the House voted in the 
affirmative, and only four men voted against it, and 
those four were old-line Abolitionists. 

"In 1854, Mr. Abraham Lincoln and Mr. Trumbull 
entered into an arrangement, one with the other, and 
each with his respective friends, to dissolve the old 
Whig party on the one hand, and to dissolve the old 
Democratic party on the other, and to connect the 
members of both into an abolition party, under the 
name and disguise of the Republican party. 

"The terms of that arrangement between Mr. Lin- 
coln and Mr. Trumbull have been published to the 
world by Mr. Lincoln's special friend, H. Matheny, 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 337 

Esq., and they were that Lincoln should have Shield's 
place in the United States Senate, which was then 
about to become vacant, and that Mr. Trumbull would 
have my seat when my term expired. 

"Lincoln went to work to abolish the old Whig party 
all over the State, pretending that he was then as good 
a Whig as ever ; and^Trumbull went to work in his part 
of the State preaching abolitionism in its milder and 
lighter form, and trying to abolitionize the Democratic 
party and bring old Democrats handcuffed and bound 
hand and foot into the abolition camp. 

"In pursuance of this arrangement, the parties met 
at Springfield in October, 1854, and proclaimed their 
new platform. 

"Lincoln was to bring into the abolition camp the 
old-line Whigs, and transfer them over to Giddings, 
Chase, Fred Douglass, and Parson Lovejoy, who were 
ready to receive them and christen them in their new 
party faith. He laid down on that occasion a platform 
for their new Republican party, which was to be thus 
constructed. I have their resolutions of the State 
Convention then held, which was the First mass State 
Convention ever held in Illinois by the Black Repub- 
lican party, and I now hold them in my hands, and will 
read a part of them, and cause the others to be printed. 
Here are the most important and material resolutions 
of this abolition platform: [Reading]. Now, Gentle- 
men, your Black Republicans have cheered eveiy one 
of those propositions, and yet I venture to say that you 
cannot get Mr. Lincoln to come out and say that he is 
now in favor of each one of them. 

"That these propositions, one and all, constitute the 
platform of the Black Republican party of this day, I 



33 8 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

have no doubt; and when you were not aware for what 
purpose I was reading them, your Black Republicans 
cheered them as good Black Republican doctrines. 

"My object in reading these resolutions, was to put 
the question to Abraham Lincoln this day, whether 
he now stands and will stand by each article in that 
creed, and carry it out. 

"I desire to know whether Mr. Lincoln to-day stands 
as he did in 1854, in favor of unconditional repeal of 
the Fugitive Slave Law. 

"I desire him to answer whether he stands pledged 
to-day, as he did in 1854, against the admission of any 
more slave States into the Union, even if the people 
want them. I want to know whether he stands to-day 
pledged to the abolition of slavery in the District of 
Columbia. I desire him to answer whether he stands 
pledged to the prohibition of the slave trade between 
the different States. 

"I desire to know whether he stands pledged to pro- 
hibit slavery in all the Territories of the United States, 
North as well as South of the Missouri Compromise 
line. 

"I desire him to answer whether he is opposed to the 
acquisition of any more territory unless slavery is 
prohibited therein. levant his answers to these ques- 
tions. Your affirmative cheers in favor of the abolition 
platform are not satisfactory. I ask Abraham Lincoln 
OSWer these questions in order that when I trot him 
down to lower Egypt I may put the same questions to 

him. 

"My prindple8 arc the same everywhere. 

"I can proclaim them alike in the North, the South, 
the East, and the West. My principles will apply 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 339 

wherever the Constitution prevails and the American 
flag waves. I desire to know whether Mr. Lincoln's 
principles will bear transplanting from Ottawa to 
Jonesboro? I put these questions to him to-day dis- 
tinctly, and ask an answer. I have a right to an 
answer, for I quote from the platform of the Repub- 
lican party, made by himself and others at the time 
that party was formed, and the bargain made by 
Lincoln to dissolve and kill the old Whig party and 
transfer its members bound hand and foot to the 
abolition party, under the direction of Giddings and 
Fred Douglass. 

"In the remarks I have made on this platform, and 
the position of Mr. Lincoln upon it, I mean nothing 
personally disrespectful or unkind to any gentleman. 
I have known him for nearly twenty-five years. There 
were many points of sympathy between us when we 
first got acquainted. 

"We were both comparatively boys, and both strug- 
gling with poverty in a strange land. 

"I was a schoolteacher in the town of Winchester, 
and he a flourishing grocery-keeper in the town of 
Salem. 

"He was more successful in his occupation than I 
was in mine, and hence more fortunate in this world's 
goods. 

"Lincoln is one of those peculiar men who perform 
with admirable skill everything which they undertake. 

"I made as good a schoolteacher as I possibly could, 
and when a cabinet-maker I made a good bedstead and 
tables, although my old boss said I succeeded better 
with bureaus and secretaries than with anything else ; 
but I believe that Lincoln was always more successful 



34o LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

in business than I, for his business enabled him to get 
into the Legislature. 

"I met him there, however, and had a sympathy 
with him, because of the up-hill struggle we both had 
in life. 

"He was then just as good at telling an anecdote as 
now. He could beat any of the boys wrestling, or run- 
ning a foot race, in pitching quoits, or tossing a copper; 
could ruin more liquor than all the boys in the town 
together, and the dignity and impartiality with which 
he presided at a horse race or fist fight, excited the 
admiration and won the praise of everybody that was 
present and participated. I sympathized with him, 
because he was struggling with difficulties, and so 
was I. 

"Mr. Lincoln served with me in the Legislature in 
1836, when we both retired and he subsided; or 
became submerged, and he was lost sight of as a pub- 
lic man for several years. 

"In 1846, when Wilmot introduced his celebrated 
process, and the abolition tornado swept over the 
country, Lincoln again turned up as a member of Con- 
gress from the Sangamon District. I was then in the 
Senate of the United States, and was glad to welcome 
my old friend and companion. While in Congress he 
distinguished himself by his opposition to the Mexican 
War, taking the side of the common enemy against his 
own country; and when he returned home he found 
that the indignation of the people followed him every- 
where, and he was again submerged or obliged to 
retire into private life, forgotten by his former friends. 

"He came up again in 1 S 5 4 , just in time to make this 
Abolition or Black Republican platform, in company 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 341 

with Giddings, Lovejoy, Chase, and Fred Douglass, 
for the Republican party to stand upon. 

"Trumbull, too, was one of our own contemporaries. 
He was born and raised in old Connecticut, was bred a 
Federalist, but removing to Georgia turned nullifier, 
when nullification was popular, and as soon as he dis- 
posed of his clocks and wound up his business, migrated 
to Illinois, turned politician, and became noted as the 
author of the scheme to repudiate a large portion of 
the State debt of Illinois, which, if successful, would 
have brought infamy and disgrace upon the fair 
escutcheon of our glorious State. The odium attached 
to that measure consigned him to oblivion for a time. 
I helped to do it. I walked to a public meeting in the 
hall of the House of Representatives, and replied to his 
repudiating speeches, and resolutions were carried 
over his head denouncing repudiation, and asserting 
the moral and legal obligation of Illinois to pay every 
dollar of the debt she owed and every bond that bore 
her seal. 

"Trumbull's malignity has followed me since I thus 
defeated his nefarious schemes. These two men, hav- 
ing formed this combination to abolitionize the old 
Whig party and the old Democratic party, and put 
themselves into the Senate of the United States, in 
pursuance of their bargain are now carrying out that 
arrangement. 

"Matheny states that Trumbull broke faith; that the 
bargain was, that Lincoln should be the Senator in 
Shields' place, and Trumbull was to wait for mine; 
and the story goes, that Trumbull cheated Lincoln, 
having control of four or five abolitionized Democrats 
who were holding over in the Senate ; he would not 



342 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

let them vote for Lincoln, and which obliged the rest 
of the Abolitionists to support him in order to secure 
an abolition Senator. There are a number of author- 
ities for the truth of this besides Matheny, and I sup- 
pose that even Mr. Lincoln will not deny it. 

"Mr. Lincoln demands that he shall have the place 
intended for Mr. Trumbull, as Trumbull cheated him, 
and got his, and Trumbull is stumping the State 
traducing me for the purpose of securing the position 
for Lincoln, in order to quiet him. It was in conse- 
quence of this arrangement that the Republican Con- 
vention was impaneled to instruct for Lincoln and 
nobody else, and it was on this account that they 
passed resolutions that he was their first, their last, 
and their only choice. Archy Williams was nowhere, 
Browning was nobody, Wentworth was not to be con- 
sidered; they had no man in the Republican party for 
the place except Lincoln, for the reason that he 
demanded that they should carry out the arrange- 
ments. Having formed this new party for the benefit 
of deserters from Whiggery, and deserters from 
Democracy, and having laid down the abolition plat- 
form which I have read, Lincoln now takes his stand 
and proclaims his abolition doctrine. 

"Let me read a part of them. In his speech at 
Springfield to the Convention, which nominated him 
f<»r the Senate, he said: [Reads extracts. ] [Applause 
and "good."] I am delighted to hear you Black 
Republicans say "good." I have no doubt that doc- 
trine expresses your sentiments, and I will prove to 
you now, if you will listen to me, that it is revolution- 
ary and destructive of the existence of this Govern- 
ment. 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 343 

"Mr. Lincoln, in the extract from which I have read, 
says that the Government cannot endure permanently 
by the same principles and in the same relative condi- 
tion in which our fathers made it. Why can it not 
exist divided into free and slave States? Washington, 
Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, Hamilton, Jay, and the 
great men of that day, made this Government divided 
into free States and slave States, and left each State 
perfectly free to do as it pleased on the subject of 
slavery. Why can it not exist on the same principles 
on which our fathers made it? They knew when they 
framed the Constitution that in a country as wide and 
broad as this, with such a variety of climate, produc- 
tions and interest, the people necessarily required 
different laws and institutions in different localities. 

"They knew that the laws and regulations which 
would suit the granite hills of New Hampshire would 
be unsuited to the rice plantations of South Carolina, 
and they, therefore, provided that each State should 
retain its own Legislature and its own sovereignty, 
with the full and complete power to do as it pleased 
within its own limits, in all that was local and not 
national. 

"One of the reserved rights of the States was the 
right to regulate the relations between master and 
servant on the slavery question. 

"At the time the Constitution was framed, there 
were thirteen States in the Union, twelve of which 
were slave-holding States, and one a free State. Sup- 
pose this doctrine of uniformity preached by Mr. Lin- 
coln, that the States should all be free or all slave, had 
prevailed, and what would have been the result? Of 
course, the twelve slave-holding States would have 



344 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

overruled the one free State, and slavery would have 
been fastened by a Constitutional provision on every 
inch of the American Republic, instead of being left as 
our fathers wisely left it, to each State to decide for 
itself. 

"Here I assent that uniformity in the local laws and 
institutions of the different States is neither possible 
nor desirable. 

"If imiformity had been adopted when the Govern- 
ment was established, it must inevitably have been the 
uniformity of slavery everywhere, or else the uni- 
formity of negro citizenship and negro equality every- 
where. We are told by Lincoln, that he is utterly 
opposed to the Dred Scott decision, and will not 
submit to it, for the reason that he says it deprives the 
negro of the rights and privileges of citizenship. 

"That is the first and main reason which he assigns 
for the warfare on the Supreme Court of the United 
States and its decision. 

"I ask you, are you in favor of conferring upon the 
negro the rights and privileges of citizenship? Do you 
desire to strike out of our State Constitution that clause 
which keeps slaves and free negroes out of the State, 
and allow the free negroes to flow in, and cover your 
prairies with black settlements? 

"Do you desire to turn this beautiful State into a 
free negro colony, in order that when Missouri 
abolishes slavery she can send one hundred thousand 
emancipated slaves into Illinois, to become citizens and 
voters on an equality with ourselves? 

"If you desire negro citizenship, if you desire them 
to vote on an equality with yourselves, and to make 
them eligible to office, to serve on juries and to adjudge 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 345 

our rights, then support Mr. Lincoln and the Black 
Republican party, who are in favor of the citizenship 
of the negro. 

"For one, I am opposed to negro citizenship in any 
and every form. I believe this Government was made 
on the white basis. 

"I believe it was made by white men, for the benefit 
of white men and their posterity forever, and I am in 
favor of conferring citizenship to white men, men of 
European birth and descent, instead of conferring it 
upon negroes, Indians, and other inferior races. 

"Mr. Lincoln, following the example and lead of all 
the little abolition orators, who go around and lecture 
in the basements of schools and churches, read from 
the Declaration of Independence, that all men are 
created equal, and then asks, how can you deprive a 
negro of that equality which God and the Declaration 
of Independence award to him? He and they maintain 
that negro equality is guaranteed by the laws of God, 
and that it is asserted in the Declaration of Independ- 
ence. 

"If they think so, of course, they have a right to say 
so, and so vote. I do not question Mr. Lincoln's con- 
scientious belief that the negro was made his equal, and 
hence is his brother, but for my own part, I do not 
regard the negro as my equal, and positively deny that 
he is my brother or any kin to me whatever. Lincoln 
has evidently learned by heart Parson Lovejoy's cate- 
chism. He can repeat as well as Farnsworth, and he 
is worthy of a medal from Father Giddings and Fred 
Douglass for his abolitionism. He holds that the negro 
was born his equal and yours, and that he was endowed 
with equality by the Almighty, and that no human law 



346 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

can deprive him of these rights which were guaranteed 
to him by the Supreme Ruler of the Universe. Now, 
I do not believe that the Almighty ever intended the 
negro to be the equal of the white man. If he did, he 
has been a long time demonstrating the fact. For 
thousands of years the negro has been a race upon the 
earth, and during all that time, in all latitudes and 
climates, wherever he has wandered or been taken, he 
has been inferior to the race which he has there met. 
He belongs to an inferior race, and must always 
occupy an inferior position. 

"I do not hold that because the negro is our inferior 
that therefore he ought to be a slave. By no means 
can such a conclusion be drawn from what I have said. 
On the contrary, I hold that humanity and Christianity 
both require that the negro shall have and enjoy every 
right, every privilege, and every immunity consistent 
with the safety of the society in which he lives. 

"On that point, I presume, there can be no diversity 
of opinion. 

"You and I are bound to extend to our inferior and 
dependent beings every right, every privilege, every 
facility and immunity consistent with the public good. 

"The question then arises, what rights and privileges 
are consistent with the public good? 

"This is a question which each State and each Ter- 
ritory must decide for itself — Illinois has decided it for 
herself. We have provided that the negro shall not be 
a slave, and we have also provided that he shall not be 
a citizen, but we protect him in his civil rights, in his 
life, his person, and his property, only depriving him of 
all political rights whatsoever, and refusing to put him 
on an equality with the white man. 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 347 

"That policy of Illinois is satisfactory to the Demo- 
cratic party and to me, and if it were to the Repub- 
licans, there would be no question upon the subject. 

"But the Republicans say he ought to be made a 
citizen, and when he becomes a citizen, he becomes 
your equal, with all your rights and privileges. 

"They assert the Dred Scott decision to be monstrous 
because it denies that the negro is or can be a citizen 
under the Constitution. 

"Now, I hold that Illinois has a right to abolish and 
prohibit slavery, as she did, and I hold that Kentucky 
has the same right to continue and protect slavery that 
Illinois had to abolish it. I hold that New York had 
as much right to abolish slavery as Virginia has to con- 
tinue it, and that each and every State of this Union is 
a sovereign power, with the right to do as it pleases on 
this question of slavery, and upon all its domestic insti- 
tutions. 

"Slavery is not the only question that comes up in 
this controversy. There is a far more important one 
to you, and that is, what shall be done with the free 
negro? 

"We have settled the slavery question, so far as we 
are concerned ; we have prohibited it in Illinois for- 
ever, and in doing so, I think we have done wisely, and 
there is no man in the State who would be more 
strenuous in his opposition to the introduction of slav- 
ery than I would ; but when we have settled it for our- 
selves, we exhausted all our power over that subject. 
We have done our whole duty, and can do no more. 

"We must leave each and every other State to 
decide for itself the same question. In relation to the 
policy to be pursued toward the free negroes, we have 



348 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

said that they shall not vote; whilst Maine, on the 
other hand, has said that they shall vote. Maine is a 
sovereign State, and has the power to regulate the 
qualifications of voters within her limits. I would 
never consent to confer the right of voting and of 
citizenship upon a negro, but still I am not going to 
quarrel with Maine for differing with me in opinion. 
Let Maine take care of her own negroes and fix the 
qualifications of her own voters to suit herself, without 
interfering with Illinois, and Illinois will not interfere 
with Maine. So with the State of New York. She 
allows the negro to vote provided he owns two hundred 
and fifty dollars' worth of property, but not otherwise. 

"While I should not make any distinction, whatever, 
between a negro who held property and one who did 
not, yet, if the sovereign State of New York chooses 
to make that distinction, it is her business and not 
mine, and I will not quarrel with her for it. She can 
do as she pleases on this question if she minds her own 
business, and we will do the same thing. 

"Now, my friends, if we will only act conscientiously 
and rigidly upon this great question of popular sover- 
eignty, which guarantees to each State and Territory 
the right to do as it pleases on all things local, and 
domestic, instead of Congress interfering, we will 
continue at peace one with another. 

"Why should Illinois be at war with Missouri, or 
Kentucky with Ohio, or Virginia with New York, 
merely because their institutions differ. They knew 
that the North and the South, having different cli- 
mates, productions and interests, required different 
institutions. 

"This doctrine of Mr. Lincoln's, of uniformity among 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 349 

the institutions of the different States, is a new doc- 
trine never dreamed of by Washington, Madison, or 
the framers of this Government. Mr. Lincoln and the 
Republican party set themselves up as wiser than these 
men who made the Government, which has flourished 
for seventy years under the principle of popular 
sovereignty, recognizing the right of each State to do 
as it pleased. Under that principle we have grown 
from a nation of about thirty millions of people. We 
have crossed the Alleghany Mountains, and filled up 
the whole Northwest, turning the prairie into a gar- 
den, and building up churches and schools, thus 
spreading civilization and Christianity where before 
there was nothing but savage barbarism. Under that 
principle we have become, from a feeble nation, the 
most powerful on the face of the earth, and if we only 
adhere to that principle, we can go forward increasing 
in territory, in power, in strength, and in glory until 
the Republic of America shall be the North Star that 
shall guide the friends of freedom throughout the 
civilized world. 

"And why can we not adhere to the great principle 
of self-government, upon which our institutions were 
originally based? I believe that the new doctrine 
preached by Mr. Lincoln and his party will dissolve 
the Union if it succeeds. 

"They are trying to array all the Northern States in 
one body against the South, to excite a sectional war 
between the free States and the slave States, in order 
that one or the other may be driven to the wall. 

"I am told that my time is out. Mr. Lincoln will 
now address you for an hour and a half, and I will then 
occupy a half hour in replying to him, " 



350 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

mr. Lincoln's reply. 
"My Fellow-Citizens: When a man hears himself 
somewhat misrepresented, it provokes him — at least I 
find it so with myself, but when misrepresentation 
becomes very gross and palpable, it is more apt to 
amuse me. 

"The first thing I see fit to notice is the fact that 
Judge Douglas alleges, after running through the his- 
tory of the old Democratic and the old Whig parties, 
that Judge Trumbull and myself made arrangement in 
1854, by which I was to have the place of General 
Shields in the United States Senate, and Judge Trum- 
bull was to have the place of Judge Douglas. 

"Now, all that I have to say upon that subject is, 
that I think no man, not even Judge Douglas, can 
prove this, because it is not true. I have no doubt he 
is conscientious in saying it. As to those resolutions 
that he took such a length of time to read, as being the 
platform of the Republican party in 1854, I say, I 
never had anything to do with them. 

"I believe this is true about those resolutions: 
There was a call for a convention to form a Repub- 
lican party at Springfield, and I think that my friend, 
Mr. Love joy, who is here upon this stand, had a hand 
in it. I think this is true, and T think, if he will 
remember accurately, he will be able to recollect that 
he tried to get me into it, and I would not go in. 

"I believe that it is also true that I went away from 
Springfield when the Convention was in session to 
attend court in Tazewell County. It is true that they 
did place my name, though without authority, upon 
tin- Committee, and afterward wrote me to attend the 
meeting of the Committee, but I refused to do so, and 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 351 

I never had anything to do with that organization. 
This is the plain truth about all that matter of the 
resolution. 

"Now, about that story that Judge Douglas tells of 
Trumbull bargaining to sell out the old Democratic 
party, and Lincoln agreeing to sell out the old Whig 
party, I have the means of knowing about that that 
Judge Douglas cannot have, and I know there is no 
substance to it whatever. Yet I have no doubt he is 
'conscientious' about it. I know that after Mr. 
Lovejoy got into the Legislature that winter, he com- 
plained of me that I had told all the old Whigs of his 
district that the old Whig party was good enough for 
them, and some of them voted against him because I 
told them so. Now, I have no means of totally dis- 
proving such charges as this which the Judge makes. 

"A man cannot prove a negative, but he has a right 
to claim that when a man makes an affirmative charge, 
he must offer some proof to show the truth of what he 
says. I certainly cannot introduce testimony to show 
the negative about things, but I have a right to claim 
that if a man says he knows a thing, then he must 
show how he knows it. I always have a right to claim 
this, and it is not satisfactory to me that he may be 
conscientious on the subject. 

"Now, gentlemen, I hate to waste my time on such 
things, but in regard to that general abolition tilt that 
Judge Douglas makes, when he says that I was 
engaged at that time in selling out and abolitionizing 
the old Whig party, I hope you will permit me to read 
a part of a printed speech that I made then at Peoria, 
which will show altogether a different view of the 
position I took in that contest of 1854: 



352 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

" 'This is the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. 
The foregoing history may not be precisely accurate in 
every particular, but I presume it is sufficiently so for 
all the uses I shall attempt to make of it, and in it we 
have before us the chief material enabling us to cor- 
rectly judge whether the repeal of the Missouri Com- 
promise is right or wrong. I think, and shall try to 
show, that it is wrong; wrong in its direct effects, 
letting slavery into Kansas and Nebraska, and wrong 
in its prospective principle, allowing it to spread to 
every other part of the wide world, where men can be 
found inclined to take it. This declared indifference, 
but, as I must think, covert zeal, for the spread of 
slavery, I cannot but hate. I hate it because of the 
monstrous injustice of slavery itself — I hate it because 
it deprives our Republican example of its just influence 
in the world — enables the enemies of free institutions, 
with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites — causes the 
real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and 
especially because it forces so many really good men 
amongst ourselves into open war with the very 
fundamental principles of civil liberty — criticising 
the Declaration of Independence, and insisting 
that there is no right principle of action but self- 
interest. 

' 'Before proceeding, let me say, I think I have no 
prejudice against the Southern people. They are just 
what we would be in their situation. If slavery did 
xist among them, they would not introduce it; if 
it did now exist among us, we should not instantly give 
it up. This 1 believe of the masses, north and south. 
Doubtless there arc individuals on both sides who 
would not hold the slaves under any circumstances, and 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 353 

others who would gladly introduce slavery anew, if it 
were out of existence. 

" 'We know that some Southern men do free their 
slaves, go north and become tip-top Abolitionists, 
while some northern ones go south and become most 
cruel slave masters. 

" 'When Southern people tell us they are no more 
responsible for the origin of slavery than we, I 
acknowledge the fact. When it is said that the insti- 
tution exists and that it is very difficult to get rid of it 
in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appre- 
ciate the saying. I surely will not blame them for not 
doing what I should not know how to do myself. If 
all earthly powers were given me, I should not know 
what to do as to the existing institution. 

' ' ' My first impulse would be to free all the slaves and 
send them to Liberia — to their own native land. But 
a moment's reflection would convince me that what- 
ever of high hope (as I think there is) there may be in 
this, in the long run, its sudden execution is impos- 
sible. 

" 'If they were all landed there in a day, they would 
all perish there in the next ten days — and there are not 
surplus shipping and surplus money enough in the 
world to carry them there in many times ten days. 
What then ? Free them all, and keep them among us 
as underlings? Is it quite certain that this betters 
their condition? I think I would not hold them in 
slavery at any rate, yet the point is not clear enough to 
me to denounce people upon. What next? Free them, 
and make them politically and socially our equals? My 
own feelings will not admit of this; and if mine would, 
we well know that the great mass of white people will 



354 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

not. Whether this feeling accords with justice and 
sound judgment is not the sole question, if, indeed, it 
is any part of it. A universal feeling, whether well or 
ill founded, cannot be safely disregarded. We can- 
not, then, make them equals. It does seem to me that 
systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted ; 
but for their tardiness, I will not undertake to judge 
our brethren of the South; they remind us of their 
Constitutional rights; I acknowledge them, not grudg- 
ingly, but fully and fairly, and I would give them any 
legislation for the reclaiming of their fugitives, which 
should not, in its stringency, be more likely to carry 
a free man into slavery than our ordinary criminal laws 
are to hang an innocent one. 

"But all this, to my judgment, furnishes no more 
excuse for permitting slavery to go into our own free 
territory, than it would for revising the African slave- 
trade by law. The law which forbids the bringing of 
slaves from Africa, and that which has so long forbid 
the taking of them to Nebraska, can hardly be dis- 
tinguished on any moral principle; and the repeal of 
the former could find quite as plausible excuses as that 
of the hitter.' 

"I have reason to know that Judge Douglas knows 
that I said this; I think he has the answer here to one 
of his questions he puts to me; I do not mean to allow 
him to catechise me unless he pays me back in kind. 
I will n<>t answer questions one after another, unless 
he reciprocates, but as he has made this inquiry, and I 
have answered it before, he has got it without my get- 
ting anything in return. He has got my answer on 
the Fugitive Slave Law. 

"Now, gentlemen, I don't want to read at any 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 355 

greater length, but this is the true complexion of all I 
have ever said in regard to the institution of slavery 
and the black race. 

"This is the whole of it, and anything that argues 
me into his idea of perfect social and political equality 
with the negro is but a specious and fantastic arrange- 
ment of words by which men can prove a horsechest- 
nut to be a chestnut horse. I will say here, while 
upon this subject, that I have no purpose, directly or 
indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery 
in the States where it exists. I believe I have no law- 
ful right to do so; I have no purpose to introduce 
political and social equality between the white and 
black races. There is a physical difference between 
the two, which, in my judgment, will probably forever 
forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect 
equality, and, inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that 
there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, 
am in favor of the race to which I belong having the 
superior position. 

"I have never said anything to the contrary, but I 
hold that, notwithstanding all this, there is no reason 
in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the 
natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness. I hold that he is as much entitled to these 
as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas, he is 
not my equal in any respect, certainly not in color, 
perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowments, but 
in the right to eat the bread, without the leave of any- 
body else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal 
and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of any 
living man. 



356 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

"Now, I pass on to consider one or two more of 
these little follies. The Judge is woefully at fault 
about his early friend Lincoln being a grocery-keeper. 
I don't know as it would be a great sin, if I had been, 
but he is mistaken. Lincoln never kept a grocery any- 
where in the world ; it is true that Lincoln did work 
the latter part of one winter in a little still-house up at 
the head of the hollow. And so, I think, my friend, 
the Judge, is equally at fault when he charges me at 
the time when I was in Congress of having opposed 
our soldiers who were fighting in the Mexican War. 
The Judge did not make his charge very distinctly 
but I can tell you how you can prove it, by referring 
to the record. You remember I was an old Whig, and 
whenever the Democratic party tried to get me to vote 
that the war had been righteously made by the Presi- 
dent, I would not do it, but whenever they asked for 
money or land warrants, or anything to pay the sol- 
diers there, during all that time, I gave the same vote 
that Judge Douglas did. You can think as you please 
as to whether that was consistent. Such is the truth, 
and the Judge has the right to make all he can out of 
it. Hut when he, by a general statement, conveys the 
idea that I withheld supplies from the soldiers, he is, 
to say the least, grossly and altogether mistaken, as a 
consultation of the records will prove to him. 

"As I have DOt used up so much of my time as I had 
supposed, I will dwell a little longer upon one or two 
of these minor topics upon which the Judge has 
spoken. He has read from my speech in Springfield, 
in which I said that 'a house divided against itself 
cannot Stand.' Does the Judge say it can Stand? 
I don't know whether he does or not. The Judge does 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 357 

not seem to be attending to me just now, but I would 
like to know if it is his opinion that a house divided 
against itself can stand. If he does, then there is a 
question of veracity, not between him and me, but 
between the Judge and an authority of a somewhat 
higher character. 

"Now, my friends, I ask your attention to this 
matter for the purpose of saying something seriously. 
I know that the Judge may readily enough agree with 
me that the maxim which was put forth by the Savior 
is true, but he may allege that I misapply it; and the 
Judge has a right to urge that, in my application, I do 
misapply it, and then I have a right to show that I do 
not misapply it. When he undertakes to say that 
because I think this nation, so far as the question is 
concerned, will all become one thing or all the other, 
I am in favor of bringing about a dead uniformity in 
the various States in all their institutions, he argues 
erroneously. The great variety of the local institu- 
tions in the States, springing from differences in the 
soil, differences in the face of the country, and in the 
climate, are bonds of union. They do not make a 
house divided against itself, but they make a house 
united. 

"If they produce in one section of the country what 
is called for by the wants of another section, and this 
other section can supply the wants of the first, they are 
not matters of discord, but bonds of union, true bonds 
of union. But can this question of slavery be consid- 
ered as among these varieties in the institutions of the 
country? I leave it to you to say whether in the his- 
tory of our Government this institution of slavery has 
not always failed to be a bond of union, and, on the 



358 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

contrary, been an apple of discord, and an element of 
division in the house. 

' I ask you to consider whether, so long as the moral 
constitution of men's minds shall continue to be the 
same, after this generation and assemblage shall sink 
into the grave, and another race shall arise, with the 
same moral and intellectual development we have, 
whether, if that institution is standing in the irritating 
position in which it now is, it will not continue an 
element of division? If so, then I have a right to say 
that, in regard to this question, the Union is a house 
divided against itself; and when the Judge reminds me 
that I have often said to him that the institution of 
slavery has existed for eighty years in some States, and 
yet it does not exist in some others, I agree to the fact, 
and I account for it by looking at the position in which 
our fathers originally placed it, — restricting it from 
the new Territories where it had not gone, and legis- 
lating to cut off its source by the abrogation of the 
slave-leader, thus putting the seal of legislation against 
its spread. 

"The public mind did rest in the belief that it was in 
the course of ultimate extinction. But lately, I think 
— and in this I charge nothing on the Judge's motives 
— lately, I think that he, and those acting with him, 
have placed that institution on a new basis, which 
looks to the perpetuity and nationalization of slavery. 
And while it is placed upon this new basis, I say, and 
have said, that I believe we shall not have peace upon 
the question until the opponents of slavery arrest the 
further spread of it, and place it where the public 
mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of 
ultimate extinction; or, on the other hand, that its 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 359 

advocates will push it forward until it shall become 
alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North 
as well as South. 

"Now, I believe if we could arrest the spread, and 
place it where Washington and Jefferson and Madison 
placed it, it would be in the course of ultimate extinc- 
tion. The crisis would be past, and the institution 
might be left alone for a hundred years, if it should 
live so long in the States where it exists, yet it would 
be going out of existence in the way best for both the 
black and the white races. 

"[A voice — 'Then do you repudiate Popular Sover- 
eignty?'] What is Popular Sovereignty? Is it the right 
of the people to have slavery or not have it, as they see 
fit, in the Territories? I will state — and I have an 
able man to match me — my understanding is that Pop- 
ular Sovereignty, as now applied to the question of 
slavery, does allow the people of a Territory to 
have slavery if they want to, but allows them not to 
have it if they do not want it. I do not mean that if 
this vast concourse of people were in a Territory of the 
United States, any one of them would be obliged to 
have a slave if he did not want one; but I do say that, 
as I understand the Dred Scott decision, if any one 
man wants slaves, all the rest have no way of keeping 
that one man from holding them. 

"When I made my speech at Springfield, of which 
the Judge complains and from which he quotes, I 
really was not thinking of the things which he ascribes 
to me at all. I had no thought in the world that I was 
doing anything to bring about a war between the free 
and slave States. 

"I had no thought in the world that I was doing any- 



360 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

thing to bring about a political and social equality of 
the black and white races. 

"It never occurred to me that I was doing anything 
or favoring anything to reduce to a dead uniformity 
all the local institutions of the various States. 

"But I must say, in all fairness to him, if he thinks 
I am doing something that leads to these bad results, 
it is none the better that I did not mean it. 

"It is just as fatal to the country, if I had any influ- 
ence in producing it, whether I intended to or not. 

"But can it be true, that placing this institution 
upon the original basis — the basis upon which our 
fathers placed it — can have any tendency to set the 
Northern and Southern States at war with one another, 
or that it can have any tendency to make the people of 
Vermont raise sugarcane, because they raise it in 
Louisiana, or that it can compel the people of Illinois 
to cut pine logs on the Grand Prairie, where they will 
not grow, because they cut pine logs in Maine, where 
they do grow? The Judge says this is a new principle 
started in regard to this question. Does the Judge 
claim that he is working on the plan of the founder of 
Government? 

"I think he says in some of his speeches — indeed, I 
one lure now — that he saw evidence of a policy 
to allow slavery to be south of a certain line, while 
north of it it should be excluded, and he saw an indis- 
position Oil the part of the country to stand upon that 
policy, and therefore he set about studying the subject 
upon original principles, and upon original principles 
he got up tin- Nebraska bill' 1 am fighting it upon 
e 'original principles' — fighting it in the Jeffer- 
lonifln, W.t hingtnnian and Madisonian fashion. 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 361 

"Now, my friends, I wish you to attend for a little 
while to one or two other things in that Springfield 
speech. My main object was to show, so far as my 
humble ability was capable of showing to the people of 
this country, what I believe was the truth, that there 
was a tendency, if not a conspiracy among those who 
have engineered this slavery question for the last four 
or five years, to make slavery perpetual and universal 
in this nation. 

"Having made that speech principally for that 
object, after arranging the evidences that I thought 
tended to prove my proposition, I concluded with this 
bit of comment : [Reads from Springfield speech]. 

"When my friend Judge Douglas came to Chicago, 
on the 9th of July, this speech having been delivered 
on the 1 6th of June, he made a harangue there, in 
which he took hold of the speech of mine, showing that 
he had carefully read it; and while he paid no atten- 
tion to this matter at all, but complimented me as 
being a 'kind, amiable, and intelligent gentleman,' 
notwithstanding I had said this, he goes on and elim- 
inates, or draws out, from my speech this tendency of 
mine to set the States at war with one another, to 
make all the institutions uniform, and set the niggers 
and white people to marrying together. 

"Then, as the Judge had complimented me with 
these pleasant titles (I must confess to my weakness), I 
was a little 'taken,' for it came from a great man. 

"I was not very much accustomed to flattery, and it 
came the sweeter to me. 

"I was rather like the Hoosier with the gingerbread, 
when he said he loved it better than any other man and 
got less of it. As the Judge had so nattered me, I 



362 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

could not make up my mind that he meant to deal 
unfairly with me, so I went to work to show him that 
he misunderstood the whole scope of my speech, and 
that I really never intended to set the people at war 
with one another. 

"As an illustration, the next time I met him, which 
was at Springfield, I used this expression, that I 
claimed no right under the Constitution, nor had I 
any inclination, to enter into the slave States and inter- 
fere with the institution of slavery. 

"He says upon that: 'Lincoln will not enter into the 
slave States, but will go to the banks of the Ohio, on 
this side ; and shoot over. ' He runs on, step by step, 
in the horsechestnut style of argument, until in the 
Springfield speech he says, 'Unless he shall be success- 
ful in firing his batteries, until he shall have extin- 
guished slavery in all the States, the Union shall be 
dissolved.' Now, I don't think that was exactly the 
way to treat a 'kind, amiable, intelligent gentleman.' 
I know if I had asked the Judge to show when and 
where it was I had said that, if I didn't succeed in fir- 
ing into the slave States until slavery should be extin- 
guished, the Union should be dissolved, he could not 
have shown it. 

"I understand what he would do. He would say, 
'I don't mean to quote from you, but this was the 
result of what you say.' 

"But I have the right to ask, and I ask now. Did 
you not put it in such a form that an ordinary reader 
or listener would take it as an expression from me? 

"In a Speech at Springfield, on the night of the 17th, 
I thought I might as well attend to my own business a 
little, and I reealk-d his attention to the fact that he 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 363 

had acknowledged in my hearing twice that he had 
carefully read the speech, and still had put in no plea 
or answer. I took a default on him. I insisted that I 
had a right then to renew that charge of conspiracy. 
Ten days afterward I met the Judge at Clinton — that 
is to say, I was on the ground, but not in the discus- 
sion — I heard him make a speech. 

"Then he comes in with his plea to this charge, for 
the first time, and his plea as put in, as well as I can 
recollect it, amounted to this : That he never had any 
talk with Judge Taney or the President of the United 
States with regard to the Dred Scott decision before it 
was made. I (Lincoln) ought to know that the man 
who makes a charge without knowing it to be true, 
falsifies as much as he who knowingly tells a falsehood ; 
and lastly that he would pronounce the whole thing a 
falsehood ; but he would make no personal application of 
the charge of falsehood, not because of any regard for 
the 'kind, amiable, intelligent gentleman,' but because 
of his own personal respect. I have understood since 
then — but [turning to Judge Douglas] will not hold the 
Judge to it if he is not willing — that he has broken 
through the 'self-respect,' and has got to saying the 
things out. The Judge nods to me that it is so. 

"It is fortunate for me that I can keep as good- 
humored as I do, when the Judge acknowledged that 
he has been trying to make a question of veracity 
with me. I know the Judge is a great man, while I 
am only a small man, but I feel that I have got him. I 
demur to that plea. I waive all objections that it was 
not filed till after default was taken, and demur to it 
upon the merits. What if Judge Douglas never did 
talk with Chief Justice Taney and the President before 



364 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

the Dred Scott decision was made, does it follow that 
he could not have had as perfect an understanding 
without talking as with it? 

"I am not disposed to stand upon my legal advan- 
tages. I am disposed to take his denial as being like 
an answer in chancery, that he neither had any knowl- 
edge, information nor belief in the existence of such a 
conspiracy. 

"I am disposed to take his answer as being as broad 
as though he had put it in these words. And now, I 
ask, even if he had done so, have not I a right to prove 
it on him, and to offer the evidences of more than two 
witnesses, by whom to prove it; and if the evidence 
proves the existence of the conspiracy, does his broad 
answer denying all knowledge, information or belief, 
disturb the fact? It can only show that he was used 
by conspirators, and was not a leader of them. 

"Now, in regard to reminding me of the moral rule 
that persons who tell what they do not know to be true 
falsify as much as those who knowingly tell falsehoods, 
I remember the rule, and it must be borne in mind 
that in what I have to read to you I do not say that I 
know such a conspiracy to exist. To that I reply, I 
believe it. If the Judge says that I do not believe it, 
then he says what he does not know, and falls within 
his own rule, that he who asserts a thing which he does 
not know to be true, falsifies as much as he who know- 
ingly tells a falsehood. I want to call your attention 
to a little discussion on that branch of the case, and 
the evidence brought my mind to the conclusion which 
I expressed as my belief. 

"If, in arraying that evidence, I had stated anything 
that was false or erroneous, it needed but that Judge 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 365 

Douglas should point it out, and I would have taken it 
back with all the kindness in the world. 

"I do not deal in that way. If I have brought for- 
ward anything not a fact, if he will point it out, it will 
not even ruffle me to take it back. 

"But if he will not point out anything erroneous in 
the evidence, is it not rather for him to show by a com- 
parison of the evidence, that I have reasoned falsely, 
than to call the 'kind, amiable gentleman' a liar? 

"If I have reasoned to a false conclusion, it is the 
vocation of an able debater to show by argument that 
I have wandered to an erroneous conclusion. 

"I want to ask your attention to a portion of the 
Nebraska bill which Judge Douglas has quoted: 'It 
being the true intent and meaning of this act not to 
legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to 
exclude it therefrom ; but to leave the people thereof 
perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic 
institutions in their own way, subject only to the Con- 
stitution of the United States. ' 

"Thereupon Judge Douglas and others began to 
argue in favor of 'Popular Sovereignty' — the right of 
the people to have slaves if they wanted them, and to 
exclude slavery if they did not want them. 

" 'But,' said in substance a Senator from Ohio (Mr. 
Chase, I believe), 'we more than suspect that you do 
not mean to allow the people to exclude slavery, if 
they wish to, and if you do not mean it, accept an 
amendment which I propose, expressly authorizing the 
people to exclude slavery.' 

"I believe I have the amendment before me, which 
was offered, and under which the people of the Terri- 
tory, through their proper representatives, might, if 



366 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

they saw fit, prohibit the existence of slavery therein. 
And now I state it as a fact, to be taken back if there 
is any mistake about it, that Judge Douglas and those 
acting with him voted that amendment down. I now 
think that those men who voted it down had a real 
reason for doing so. 

"They know what that reason was. It looks to us, 
since we have seen the Dred Scott decision pronounced, 
holding that 'under the Constitution' the people cannot 
exclude slavery — I say it looks to outsiders, poor, sim- 
ple, 'amiable, intelligent gentlemen,' as though the 
niche was left as a place to put that Dred Scott decision 
in — a niche which would have been spoiled by adopting 
the amendment. 

"And now, I say again, if this was not the reason, it 
will avail the Judge much more to calmly and good- 
humoredly point out to these people what that other 
reason was for voting the amendment down, than, 
swelling himself up, to vociferate that he may be pro- 
voked to call somebody a liar. 

"Again, there is in that same quotation from the 
Nebraska bill this clause: 'It being the true intent and 
meaning of this bill not to legislate slavery into any 
Territory or State. ' 

"I have always been puzzled to know what business 
the word 'State' had in that connection. Judge 
knows. lb- put it there. He knows what he 
put it there for. We outsiders cannot say what he put 
it there for. The law that they were passing was not 
about States, and was not making provisions for 
States. What was it placed there for? 

"After Beeing tin- Dred Scott decision, which holds 
that the people cannot exclude slavery from a Terri- 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 367 

tory, if another Dred Scott shall come, holding that 
they cannot exclude it from a State, we shall discover 
that when the word was originally put there, it was in 
view of something that was to come in due time, we 
shall see that it was the other half of something. I 
now say again, if there is any different reason for put- 
ting it there, Judge Douglas, in a good-humored way, 
without calling anybody a liar, can tell what the reason 
was. 

"Quoting from Douglas's speech, 'When I saw that 
article in the Union on the 17th of November, and 
this clause in the Constitution asserting the doctrine 
that a State has no right to exclude slavery within its 
limits, I saw that there was a fatal blow being struck 
at the sovereignty of the States of this Union.' I stop 
the quotation there, again requesting that it may all 
be read. 

"I have read all of the portion that I desire to com- 
ment upon. 

"What is this charge that the Judge thinks I must 
have a very corrupt heart to make? 

"It was the purpose on the part of certain high 
functionaries to make it impossible for the people of one 
State to prohibit the people of any other State from 
entering it with their 'property,' so called, and making 
it a slave State. 

"In other words, it was a charge implying a design 
to make the institution of slavery national. 

"And now I ask your attention to what Judge 
Douglas has himself done here. I know he made that 
part of the speech as a reason why he had refused to 
vote for a certain man for public printer, but when we 
get at it, the charge itself is the very one I made 



368 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

against him, that he thinks I am so corrupt for utter- 
ing. 

"Now, whom does he make that charge against? 
Does he make it against that newspaper editor merely? 
No ; he says it is identical in spirit with the Lecomp- 
ston Constitution, and so the framers of that Constitu- 
tion are brought in with the editor of the newspaper in 
that 'fatal blow being struck.' 

"He did not call it a 'conspiracy.' In his language 
it is a 'fatal blow being struck.' 

"And, if the words carry the meaning better when 
changed from a 'conspiracy' into a 'fatal blow being 
struck,' I will change my expression and change it to 
a 'fatal blow being struck.' 

"We see the charge made not merely against the 
editor of the Union, but all the framers of the Lecomp- 
ston Constitution, and not only so, but the article was 
an authoritative article. By whose authority? 

"Is there any question but he means it was by the 
authority of the President and his Cabinet — the 
administration? 

"Is there any sort of question but he means to make 
that charge? Then there are the editors of the Union, 
the framers of the Lecompston Constitution, the Presi- 
dent of the United States and his Cabinet, and all the 
supporters of the Lecompston Constitution, in Con- 
gress and out of Congress, who are all involved in this 
'fatal blow being struck.' 

"I commend to Judge Douglas's consideration the 
question Of bow corrupt a man's heart must be to make 
BUCh a (barge! 

"Now, my friends, I have but one branch of the 
subject, in the little time I have left, to which to call 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 369 

your attention, and as I shall come to a close at the end 
of that branch, it is probable that I shall not occupy 
all the time allotted to me. Although on these ques- 
tions I would like to talk twice as long as I have, I 
could not enter upon another head and discuss it prop- 
erly without running over my time. 

"I ask the attention of the people here assembled 
and elsewhere, to the course that Judge Douglas is 
pursuing every day as bearing upon this question of 
making slavery national. Not going back to the 
records, but taking the speeches he makes, the 
speeches he made yesterday and the day before, and 
makes constantly all over the country — I ask your 
attention to them. In the first place, what is neces- 
sary to make the institution national? Not war. 
There is no danger that the people of Kentucky will 
shoulder their muskets, and, with a young nigger stuck 
on every bayonet, march to Illinois and force them 
upon us. 

"There is no danger of our going over there and 
making war upon them. Then what is necessary for 
the nationalization of slavery? 

"It is simply the next Dred Scott decision. It is 
merely for the Supreme Court to decide that no State 
under the Constitution can exclude it, just as they 
have already decided that under the Constitution 
neither Congress nor the Territorial Legislature can 
do it. When that is decided and acquiesced in, the 
whole thing is done. This being true, and this being 
the way, as I think, that slavery is to be made 
national, let us consider what Judge Douglas is doing 
every day to that end. 

"In the first place, let us see what influence he is 



37o LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

exerting on public sentiment. In this and like com- 
munities, public sentiment is everything. With public 
sentiment, nothing can fail, without it, nothing can 
succeed. Consequently, he who molds public senti- 
ment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pro- 
nounces decisions. He makes statutes and decisions 
possible or impossible to be executed. This must be 
borne in mind, as also the additional fact that Judge 
Douglas is a man of vast influence, so great that it is 
enough for many men to profess to believe anything 
when they once find out that Judge Douglas professes 
to believe it. Consider also the attitude he occupies 
at the head of a large party — a party which he claims 
has a majority of all the votes in the country. This 
man sticks to a decision, which forbids the people of a 
territory from excluding slavery, and he does so not 
because he says it is right in itself — he does not give 
any opinion on that — but because it has been decided 
by the court, and being decided by the court, he is, and 
you are, bound to take it in your political action as 
law — not that he judges at all of its merits, but 
because a decision of the court is to him a 'Thus saith 
the Lord. ' 

"He places it on that ground alone, and you will 
bear in mind that, thus committing himself unreserv- 
edly to this decision, he commits himself to the next 
one just as firmly as to this. He did not commit himself 
on account of the merit or demerit of the decision, but 
it is a 'Thus saith the Lord.' The next decision, as 
much as this, will be a 'Thus saith the Lord.' 

"There is nothing that can divert or turn him away 
from this decision. It is nothing that I point out to 
him that his great prototype, General Jackson, did not 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 371 

so believe in the binding force of decisions. It is 
nothing that Jefferson did not so believe. I have said 
that I have often heard him approve of Jackson's 
course in disregarding the decision of the Supreme 
Court pronouncing a National Bank constitutional. 

"He says I did not hear him say so. He denies the 
accuracy of my recollections. I say he ought to know 
better than I, but I will make no question about this 
thing, though it still seems to me that I heard him say 
it twenty times. 

"I will tell him, though, that he now claims to stand 
on the Cincinnati platform, which affirms that Congress 
cannot charter a National Bank in the teeth of that 
old-standing decision that Congress can charter a bank. 
And I remind him of another piece of history on the 
question of respect for judicial decisions, and it is a 
piece of Illinois history, belonging to a time when the 
large party to which Judge Douglas belonged were 
displeased with a decision of the Supreme Court of 
Illinois, because they had decided that a Governor 
could not remove a Secretary of State. You will find 
the whole story in Ford's History of Illinois, and I 
know that Judge Douglas will not deny that he was 
then in favor of overruling that decision by the mode 
of adding five new Judges, so as to vote down the four 
old ones. Not only so, but it ended in the Judge sit- 
ting down on that very bench as one of the five new 
Judges to break down the four old ones. 

"It was in this way precisely that he got his title of 
Judge. Now, when the Judge tells me that men 
appointed conditionally to sit as members of a court 
will have to be catechised beforehand upon some sub- 
ject, I say, 'You know, Judge; you have tried it,' 



372 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

"When he says a court of this kind will lose the con- 
fidence of all men, will be proctituted and disgraced by 
such a proceeding, I say, 'You know best, Judge; you 
have been through the mill.' But I cannot shake 
Judge Douglas's teeth loose from the Dred Scott 
Decision. 

"Like some obstinate animal (I mean no disrespect) 
that will hang on when he has once got his teeth fixed, 
you may cut off a leg, or you may tear away an arm, 
still he will not relax his hold. And so I may point 
out to the Judge, and say that he is bespattered all 
over, from the beginning of his political life to the 
present time, with attacks upon judicial decisions — I 
may cut off limb after limb of his public record, and 
strive to wrench him from a single dictum of the 
court — yet I cannot divert him from it. He hangs, to 
the last, to the Dred Scott decision. These things 
show there is a purpose strong as death and eternity, 
for which he adheres to this decision, and for which 
he will adhere to all other decisions of the same 
court." 

A Hibernian — "Give us something beside Dred 
Scott." 

Mr. Lincoln — "Yes; no doubt you want to hear 
something that don't hurt. Now, having spoken of 
the Dred Scott decision, one more word and I am 
done. 

"Henry Clay, my bean-ideal of a statesman, the man 
for whom I fottght all my humble life — Henry Clay 
once said of a cla [ of men who would repress all tend- 
encies to liberty and ultimate emancipation, that they 
inn: i, if they would do this, go back to the era of our 
Independence, and muzzle the cannon which thunders 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 373 

its annual joyous return; they must blow out the 
moral lights around us; they must penetrate the 
human soul, and eradicate thence the love of liberty; 
and then, and not until then, could they perpetuate 
slavery in this country! To my thinking, Judge 
Douglas is, by his example and vast influence, doing 
that very thing in this vast community, when he says 
that the negro has nothing in the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. 

"Henry Clay plainly understood to the contrary. 
Judge Douglas is going back to the era of our Revolu- 
tion, and, to the extent of his ability, muzzling the 
cannon which thunders its annual joyous return. 
When he invites any people, willing to have slavery, 
to establish it, he is blowing out the moral lights 
around us. When he says he 'cares not whether slav- 
ery is voted down or voted up* — that it is a sacred 
right of self-government — he is, in my judgment, 
penetrating the human soul and eradicating the light 
of reason and the love of liberty in this American 
people. And now I will only say that when, by all 
these means and appliances, Judge Douglas shall suc- 
ceed in bringing public sentiment to an exact accord- 
ance with his own views — when these vast assemblages 
shall echo back all these sentiments — when they shall 
come to repeat his views and to avow his principles, 
and to say all that he says on these mighty questions — 
then it needs only the formality of the second Dred 
Scott decision, which he indorses in advance, to make 
slavery alike lawful in all the States — old as well as 
new, North as well as South. 

"My friends, that ends the chapter. The Judge can 
take his half hour. " 



374 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

MR. DOUGLAS'S REPLY. 
(August 21, 1858.) 

"Fellow Citizens: "I will now occupy the half-hour 
allotted to me in replying to Mr. Lincoln. The first 
point to which I will call your attention is, to what I 
said about the organization of the Republican party in 
1854, and the platform that was formed on the 5 th of 
October of that year, and I will then put the same 
question to Mr. Lincoln whether or not he approves of 
each article in that platform, and ask for a specific 
answer. I did not charge him with being a member 
of the Committee which reported that platform. 

"I charged that that platform was the platform of 
the Republican party adopted by them. 

"The fact that it was the platform of the Republican 
party is not denied, but Mr. Lincoln now says, that 
although his name was on the Committee which 
reported it, he does not think he was there, but thinks 
he was in Tazewell, holding court. 

"Now I want to remind Mr. Lincoln, that he was at 
Springfield when that Convention was held and those 
resolutions adopted. 

"The p<»int I am going to remind Mr. Lincoln of is 
this: That after I had made my speech in 1S54, during 
the fair, he gave me notice that lie was going to reply 
t<> me the next day. I was sick at the time, but I 
Stayed over in Springfield to hear his reply and to reply 
to him. 

"On that day this very Convention, the resolutions 
adopted, which I have read, was to meet in the Senate 
Chamber. He spoke in the hall of the House; and 
when lie got through his speech — my recollection is 
distinct, and I shall never forget it — Mr. Codding 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 375 

walked in as I took the stand to reply, and gave notice 
that the Republican State Convention would meet 
instantly in the Senate Chamber, and called upon the 
Republicans to retire there and go into this very Con- 
vention, instead of remaining and listening to me. 

"In the first place, Mr. Lincoln was selected by the 
very men who made the Republican organization, on 
that day, to reply to me. 

"He spoke for them and for that party, and he was 
the leader of the party ; and on the very day he made 
his speech in reply to me, preaching upon this same 
doctrine of negro equality, under the Declaration of 
Independence, this Republican party met in Conven- 
tion. 

"Another evidence that he was acting in concert 
with them is to be found in the fact that that Conven- 
tion waited an hour after its time of meeting to hear 
Lincoln's speech, and Codding, one of their leading 
men, marched in the moment Lincoln got through, and 
gave notice that they did not want to hear me, and 
would proceed with the business of the Convention. 

"Still another fact. I have here a newspaper 
printed at Springfield, Mr. Lincoln's own town, in 
October, 1854, a few days after the publishing of these 
resolutions, charging Mr. Lincoln with entertaining 
these sentiments, and trying to prove that they were 
also the sentiments of Mr. Yates, then candidate for 
Congress. 

"This has been published on Mr. Lincoln over and 
over again, and never before has he denied it. But, 
my friends, this denial of his that he did not act on the 
committee, is a miserable quibble to avoid the main 
issue, which is, that this Republican platform declares 



376 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

in favor of the unconditional repeal of the Fugitive 
Slave Law. Has Mr. Lincoln answered whether he 
indorsed that or not? I called his attention to it when 
I first addressed you, and asked him for an answer, and 
then I predicted that he would not answer. How does 
he answer? Why, that he was not on the Committee 
that wrote the resolutions. 

"I then repeated the next proposition contained in 
the resolutions, which was to restrict slavery in those 
States in which it exists, and asked him whether he 
indorsed it. Does he answer yes or no? He says in 
reply, 'I was not on the Committee at the time; I 
was up in Tazewell. ' 

"The next question I put to him was, whether he 
was in favor of prohibiting the admission of any more 
slave States into the Union. 

"I put the question to him distinctly, whether, if the 
people of the Territory, when they had sufficient popu- 
lation to make a State, should form their Constitution 
recognizing slavery, he would vote for or against its 
admission. He is a candidate for the United States 
Senate, and it is possible, if he should be elected, that 
he would have to vote to admit a State into the Union, 
with slavery or without it, as its own people might 
choose. He did not answer that question. He dodges 
that question also, under the cover that he was not on 
the Committee at the time, that he was not present 
win n the platform was made. 

"1 want to know, if he should happen to be in the 
Senate when a State applied for admission, with a 

Constitution acceptable to her own people, he would 

VOte to admit that State, if slavery was one of its insti- 
tutions. He avoids the answer. It is true, he gives 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 377 

the Abolitionists to understand by a hint that he would 
not vote to admit such a State. And why? He goes 
on to say that the man who would talk about giving 
each State the right to have slavery, or not, as it 
pleased, was akin to the man who would muzzle the 
guns which thundered forth the annual joyous return 
of the day of our independence. 

"He says that that kind of talk is casting a blight on 
the glory of the country. What is the meaning of that? 
That he is not in favor of each State to have the right 
of doing as it pleases on the slavery question. I will 
put the questions to him again and again, and I intend 
to force it out of him. 

"Then again, this platform which was made at 
Springfield by his own party, when he was its acknowl- 
edged head, provides that 'Republicans will insist on 
the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia,' 
and I asked Lincoln specifically whether he agreed 
with them in that. ["Did you get an answer?"] He 
is afraid to answer it. He knows that I will trot him 
down to Egypt. I intend to make him answer there, 
or I will show the people of Illinois that he does not 
intend to answer these questions. 

"The Convention to which I have been alluding goes 
a little further, and pledges itself to exclude slavery 
from all the Territories over which the General Gov- 
ernment has exclusive jurisdiction north of 36 degrees 
30 minutes, as well as south. 

"Now I want to know whether he approves that pro- 
vision. I want him to answer, and when he does, I 
want to know his opinion on another point, which is, 
whether he will redeem the pledge of the platform and 
resist the acquirement of any more territory, unless 



378 LINCOLN'vS GREAT SPEECHES. 

slavery therein shall be forever prohibited. I want 
him to answer the last question. Each of the ques- 
tions I have put to him are practical questions, ques- 
tions based upon the fundamental principles of the 
Black Republican party, and I want to know whether 
he is the first, last, and only choice of a party with 
whom he does not agree in principle. 

"He does not deny but that that principle was 
unanimously adopted by the Republican party; he does 
not deny that the whole Republican party is pledged 
to it; he does not deny that a man who is not faithful 
to it is faithless to the Republican party; and I now 
want to know whether that party is unanimously in 
favor of a man who does not adopt that creed and agree 
with them in their principles. I want to know whether 
the man who does not agree with them, and who is 
afraid to avow his differences, and who dodges the 
issue, is the first, last, and only choice of the Repub- 
lican party. " 

A voice — "How about the conspiracy?" 

Mr. Douglas — "Never mind, I will come to that soon 
enough. But the plot from which I have read to you 
not only lays down these principles, but it adds: 

'Resolved, That in furtherance of these principles 
we will use such Constitutional and lawful means as 
shall seem best adapted to their accomplishment, and 
that we will support no man for office, under the general 
or State Government, who is not positively and fully 
committed to the support of these principles, and whose 
personal character and conduct is not a guaranty that 
he is reliable, and who shall not have abjured old party 
allegiance and tics. 

"The Black Republican party stands pledged that 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 379 

they would never support Lincoln until he has pledged 
himself to that platform, but he cannot devise his 
answer; he has not made up his mind whether he will 
or not. 

"He talked about everything else he could think of 
to occupy his hour and a half, and when he could not 
think of anything more to say, without an excuse for 
refusing to answer these questions, he sat down long 
before his time was out. In relation to Mr. Lincoln's 
charge of conspiracy against me, I have a word to say. 

"In his speech to-day he quotes a playful part of his 
speech at Springfield, about Stephen and James, and 
Franklin and Roger, and says that I did not take 
exception to it. I did not answer it, and he repeats 
it again. I did not take exception to this figure 
of his. 

"He has a right to be as playful as he pleases in 
throwing his arguments together, and I will not object ; 
but I did take exception to his second Springfield 
speech, in which he stated that he intended his first 
speech as a charge of corruption or conspiracy against 
the Supreme Court of the United States, President 
Buchanan, and myself. That gave the offensive char- 
acter to the charge. He then said that when he made 
it he did not know whether it was true or not, but inas- 
much as Judge Douglas had not denied it, although he 
had replied to the other parts of his speech three 
times, he repeated it as a charge of conspiracy against 
me, thus charging me with moral turpitude. When he 
put it in that form, I did say, that inasmuch as he 
repeated the charge simply because I had not denied it, 
I would deprive him of the opportunity of ever repeat- 
ing it again, by declaring that it was in all its bearings 



380 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

an infamous lie. He says he will repeat it until I 
answer his folly and nonsense about Stephen and 
Roger, and Bob and James. He studied that out — 
prepared that one sentence with the greatest care, 
committed it to memory, and put it in his first Spring- 
field speech, and now he carries that speech around 
and reads that sentence to show how pretty it is. 

"His vanity is wounded because I will not go into 
that beautiful figure of his about the building of a 
house. All I have to say is, that I am not green 
enough to let him make a charge which he acknowl- 
edges he does not know to be true, and then take up 
my time in answering it, when I know it to be false 
and nobody else knows it to be true. I have not 
brought a charge of moral turpitude against him. 
When he, or any other man, brings one against me, 
instead of disproving it, I will say that it is a lie, and 
let him prove it if he can. I have lived twenty-five 
years in Illinois. I have served you with all the fidelity 
and ability which I possess, and Mr. Lincoln is at 
liberty to attack my public action, my votes, and my 
conduct; but when he dares to attack my moral integ- 
rity, by a charge of conspiracy between myself, Chief- 
Justice Taney, and the Supreme Court, and two 
Presidents of the United States, I will repel it. 

"Mr. Lincoln has not character enough for integrity 
and truth, merely on his ipse dixit, to arraign Presi- 
dent Buchanan, President Pierce, and nine Judges of 
the Supreme Court, not <»ne of whom would be com- 
plimented by being put on an equality with him. 

•'There is an unpardonable presumption in a man 
putting himself up before thousands of people, and 
pretending that his ipse dixit, without proof, without 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 381 

fact, and without truth, is enough to bring down and 
destroy the purest and best of living men. 

"Fellow-citizens, my time is fast expiring; I must 
pass on. Mr. Lincoln wants to know why I voted 
against Mr. Chase's amendment to the Nebraska bill. 
I will tell him. In the first place, the bill already con- 
ferred all the power which Congress had, by giving the 
people the whole power over the subject. Chase 
offered a proviso that they might abolish slavery, 
which, by implication, would convey the idea that they 
could prohibit slavery by not introducing that institu- 
tion. 

"General Cass asked him to modify his amendment, 
so as to provide that the people might either prohibit 
or introduce slavery, and thus make it fair and equal. 

"Chase refused to so modify his proviso, and then 
General Cass and all the rest of us voted it down. 
Those facts appear on the journals and debates of 
Congress, where Mr. Lincoln found the charge, and if 
he had told the whole truth, there would have been no 
necessity for me to occupy your time in explaining the 
matter. 

"Mr. Lincoln wants to know why the word 'State' 
as well as 'Territory' was put in the Nebraska bill. 

"I will tell him. It was put there to meet just such 
false arguments as he has been adducing. 

"That, first, not only the people of the Territories 
should do as they pleased, but that when they came 
to be admitted as States, they should come into the 
Union with or without slavery, as the people deter- 
mined. I meant to knock in the head the abolition doc- 
trine of Mr. Lincoln's that there shall be no more slave 
States, even if the people want them. And it does not 



382 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

do for him to say, or for any other Black Republican 
to say, that there is nobody in favor of the doctrine of 
no more slave States, and that nobody wants to inter- 
fere with the right of the people to do as they please. 

"What was the origin of the Missouri difficulty and 
the Missouri Compromise? The people of Missouri 
formed a Constitution as a slave State, and asked 
admission into the Union, but the Free Soil party of 
the North, being in a majority, refused to admit her 
because she had slavery as one of her institutions. 

"Hence this first slavery agitation arose upon a State 
and not upon a Territory, and yet Mr. Lincoln does not 
know why the word State was placed in the Kansas- 
Nebraska bill. The whole abolition agitation arose on 
that doctrine of prohibiting a State from coming in 
with slavery or not, as it pleased, and that same doc- 
trine is here in this Republican platform of 1854; it 
has never been repealed; and every Black Republican 
stands pledged by that platform never to vote for any 
man who is not in favor of it. Yet Mr. Lincoln does 
not know that there is a man in the world who is in 
favor of preventing a State from coming in as it 
pleases, notwithstanding the Springfield platform 
says that they, the Republican party, will not allow a 
State to come in under such circumstances. He is an 
ignorant man. 

"X<>\v you see that upon these very points I am as 
far from bringing Mr. Lincoln up to the line as I ever 
was before. He does not want to avow his principles, 
I do want to avow mine, as clear as sunshine in mid- 
1 democracy is founded upon the eternal principle 
of ri^ht. The plainer these principles are avowed 
before the people, the stronger will be the support 




LISTENING BUT NOT CONVINCED. 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 385 

which they will receive. I only wish I had the power 
to make them so clear that they would shine in the 
heavens for every man, woman, and child to read. 

"The first of those principles that I would proclaim 
would be in opposition to Mr. Lincoln's doctrine of 
uniformity between the different States, and I would 
declare instead the sovereign right of each State to 
decide the slavery question as well as all other domes- 
tic questions for themselves, without interference from 
any other State or power whatsoever. 

"When that principle is recognized you will have 
peace and harmony and fraternal feeling between all 
the States of this Union ; until you do recognize that 
doctrine there will be sectional warfare agitating and 
distracting the country. What does Mr. Lincoln pro- 
pose? He says that the Union cannot exist divided 
into free and slave States. If it cannot endure thus 
divided, then he must strive to make them all free or 
all slave, which will inevitably bring about the dissolu- 
tion of the Union. 

■'Gentlemen, I am told that my time is out, and I am 
obliged to stop. ' ' 



LINCOLN'S GREAT COOPER INSTITUTE SPEECH. 

Delivered at Cooper Institute, New York City, Feb- 
ruary 27, i860. This speech, more than any other one, 
is supposed to have secured Lincoln the nomination for 
the Presidency. 

"Mr. President and Fellow-Citizens of New York: 
The facts with which I shall deal this evening are 
mainly old and familiar; nor is there anything new in 



386 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

the general use I shall make of them. If there shall 
be any novelty, it will be in the mode of presenting the 
facts, and the references and observations following 
that presentation. 



OUR FATHERS AND THE CONSTITUTION. 

"In his speech last autumn at Columbus, Ohio, as 
reported in the New York Times, Senator Douglas 
said: 

" 'Our fathers, when they framed the Government 
under which we live, understood this question just as 
well and even better than we do now. ' 

"I fully endorse this, and I adopt it as a text for this 
discourse. I so adopt it because it furnishes a precise 
and agreed starting point for a discussion between 
Republicans and that wing of Democracy headed by 
Senator Douglas. It simply leaves the inquiry : 'What 
was the understanding those fathers had of the ques- 
tion mentioned? What is the frame of government 
under which we live?' 

"The answer must be: 'The Constitution of the 
United States.' 

"That Constitution consists of the original, framed 
in 1787 (and under which the present Government first 
went into operation), and twelve subsequently framed 
amendments, the first ten of which were framed in 
1789. 

"Who were our fathers who framed the Constitution? 
1 suppose the 'thirtj-nine' who signed the original 
instrument may be fairly called our fathers who framed 
that part of our present Government. It is almost 
exactly true to say they framed it, and it is altogether 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 387 

true to say they fairly represented the opinion and 
sentiment of the whole nation at that time. Their 
names, being familiar to nearly all, and accessible to 
quite all, need not be repeated. 

"I take these 'thirty-nine,' for the present, as being 
'our fathers who framed the Government under which 
we live.' 

"What is the question which, according to the text, 
those fathers understood just as well and even better 
than we do now? 



THE GREAT ISSUE. 

"It is this: Does the proper division of local from 
Federal authority, or anything in the Constitution, 
forbid our Federal Government to control us as to slav- 
ery in our Federal Territories? 

''Upon this Douglas holds the affirmative, and 
Republicans the negative. This affirmative and denial 
form an issue; and this issue — this question — is pre- 
cisely what the text declares our fathers understood 
better than we. 

"In 1784 — three years before the Constitution — the 
United States then owning the Northwestern Terri- 
tory, and no other — the Congress of the Confederation 
had before them the question of prohibiting slavery in 
that Territory; and four of the 'thirty-nine' who after- 
ward framed the Constitution were in that Congress, 
and voted on that question. 

"Of these, Roger Sherman, Thomas Miffiin, and 
Hugh Williamson voted for the prohibition — thus 
showing that, in their understanding, no line divided 



388 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

local from Federal authority, nor anything else prop- 
erly forbade the Federal Government to control as to 
slaver)'- in Federal territory. 

"The other of the four — James McHenry — voted 
against the prohibition, showing that, for some cause ? 
he thought it improper to vote for it. 



ORDINANCE OF 1787. 

"In 1787, still before the Constitution, but while the 
Convention was in session framing it, and while the 
Northwest Territory was the only territory owned by 
the United States, the same question of prohibiting 
slavery in the territory again came before the Congress 
of the Confederation, and three more of the 'thirty- 
nine' who afterward signed the Constitution were in 
that Congress, and voted on that question. 

"They were: William Blount, William Few, and 
Abraham Baldwin, and they all voted for the prohibi- 
tion — thus showing that, in their understanding, no 
line divided local from Federal authority, nor anything 
else properly forbade the Federal Government to con- 
trol as to slavery in Federal territory. This time the 
prohibition became a law, being a part of what is now 
known as the ordinance of '87. 

"The question of Federal control of slavery in the 
Territories seems not to have been directly before the 
Convention Which framed the original Constitution; 
and hence it is not recorded that the 'thirty-nine,' or 
any of them, while engaged on that instrument, 
expressed any opinion on that preeise question. 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 389 

THE FIRST CONGRESS. 

"In 1789, by the first Congress which sat tinder the 
Constitution, an act was passed to enforce the ordi- 
nance of '87, including the prohibition of slavery in the 
Northwestern Territory. The bill for this act was 
reported by one of the 'thirty-nine,' Thomas Fitzsim- 
mons, then a member of the House of Representatives 
from Pennsylvania. 

"It went through all its stages without a word of 
opposition, and finally passed both branches without 
yeas or nays, which is equivalent to a unanimous pas- 
sage. In this Congress there were sixteen of the 
'thirty-nine' fathers who framed the original Constitu- 
tion. 

"They were: John Langdon, Nicholas Gilman, Wil- 
liam S. Johnson, Roger Sherman, Robert Morris, 
George Clymer, William Few, Abraham Baldwin, 
Rufus King, William Patterson, Richard Bassett, 
George Read, Pierce Butler, Daniel Carroll, James 
Madison, Thomas Fitzsimmons. 

"This shows that in their understanding no line 
dividing local from Federal authority, nor anything in 
the Constitution, properly forbade Congress to prohibit 
slavery in the Federal territory, else both their fidelity 
to correct principle and their oath to support the Con- 
stitution would have constrained them to oppose the 
prohibition. 

GEORGE WASHINGTON. 

"Again, George Washington, another of the 'thirty- 
nine, ' was then President of the United States, and, as 
such, approved and signed the bill, thus completing its 
validity as a law, and thus showing that, in his under- 



39 o LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

standing, no line dividing local from Federal authority, 
nor anything in the Constitution, forbade the Federal 
Government to control slavery in the Federal territory. 



THE FIRST TERRITORIES. 

"No great while after the adoption of the original 
Constitution, North Carolina ceded to the Federal 
Government the country now constituting the State of 
Tennessee, and a few years later Georgia ceded that 
which now constitutes the States of Mississippi and 
Alabama. In both deeds of cession it was made a con- 
dition by the ceding States that the Federal Govern- 
ment should not prohibit slavery in the ceded country. 
Besides this, slavery was already in the ceded country. 
Under these circumstances, Congress, on taking 
charge of these countries, did not absolutely prohibit 
slavery within them. But they did interfere with it, 
take control of it, even there, to a certain extent. 

"In 1798, Congress organized the Territory of Mis- 
sissippi. In the act of organization they prohibited 
the bringing of slaves into the Territories from any 
place without the United States, by fine, and giving 
freedom to slaves so brought. 

"This act passed both branches of Congress without 
yeas and nays. In that Congress were three of the 
'thirty-nine' who framed the original Constitution. 
They were John Langdon, George Read, and Abraham 
Baldwin, 

"They all,- probably, voted for it. Certainly they 

would have placed their opposition to it upon the 

• 1 if, in their understanding, any line dividing the 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 391 

local from Federal authority, or anything in the Con- 
stitution, properly forbade the Federal Government to 
control as to slavery in Federal territory. 



THE LOUISIANA COUNTRY. 

"In 1803, the Federal Government purchased the 
Louisiana country. Our former territorial acquisitions 
came from certain of our own States ; but this Louis- 
iana country was acquired from a foreign nation. In 
1804, Congress gave a territorial organization to that 
part of it which now constitutes the State of Louisiana. 
New Orleans, lying within that part, was an old and 
comparatively large city. 

"There were other considerable towns and settle- 
ments, and slavery was extensively and thoroughly 
intermingled with the people. Congress did not, in 
the territorial act, prohibit slavery; but they did inter- 
fere with it — take control of it — in a more marked and 
extensive way than they did in the case of Mississippi. 
The substance of the provision therein made, in rela- 
tion to slaves, was : 

"First: That no slaves should be imported into the 
Territory from foreign parts. 

"Second: That no slaves should be carried into it 
who had been imported into the United States since 
the first day of May, 1798. 

"Third: That no slave should be carried into it, 
except by the owner, and for his own use as a settler ; 
the penalty in all the cases being a fine upon the 
violator of the law, and freedom to the slave. 

"This act, also, was passed without yeas and nays.] 



392 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

In the Congress which passed it there were two of the 
'thirty-nine.' They were Abraham Baldwin and 
Jonathan Dayton. As stated in the case of Mississippi, 
it is probable they both voted for it ; they would not 
have allowed it to pass without recording their opposi- 
tion to it, if, in their understanding, it violated either 
the line properly dividing local from Federal authority, 
or any provision of the Constitution. 



THE MISSOURI QUESTION. 

"In 1819-20 came, and passed, the Missouri question. 
Many votes were taken by yeas and nays, in both 
branches of Congress, upon the various phases of the 
general question. 

"Two of the 'thirty-nine' — Rufus King and Charles 
Pinckney — were members of that Congress. Mr. King 
steadily voted for slavery prohibition and against all 
compromises. By this Mr. King showed that, in his 
understanding, no line dividing local from Federal 
authority, nor anything in the Constitution, was 
violated by Congress prohibiting slavery in Federal 
territory; while Mr. Pinckney, by his votes, showed 
that, in his understanding, there was some different 
reason for opposing such prohibition in the case. 

"The cases I have already mentioned are the only 
acts of the 'thirty-nine,' or any of them, upon the 
direct issue which I have been able to discover. 

"To enumerate the persons who thus acted, as being 
four in 1784, three in 1 7 S 7 , seventeen in 1789, three in 
179S, two in 1804, [and two in 1819-20, — there would be 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 393 

thirty-one of them. But this would be counting John 
Langdon, Roger Sherman, William Few, Rufus King, 
and George Read, each twice, and Abraham Baldwin 
three times. 

"The true number of those of the 'thirty-nine' whom 
I have shown to have acted upon the question, which, 
by the text, they understood better than we, is twenty- 
three, leaving sixteen not shown to have acted upon it 
in any way. 

"Here, then, we have twenty-three of our 'thirty- 
nine' fathers who framed the Government under which 
we live, who have, upon their official responsibility and 
their corporal oaths, acted upon the very question 
which the text affirms they 'understood just as well, 
and even better than we do now' ; and twenty-one of 
them — a clear majority of the whole 'thirty-nine' — so 
acting upon it as to make them guilty of a gross 
political impropriety and willful perjury, if, in their 
understanding, any proper division between local and 
Federal authority, or anything in the Constitution they 
had made themselves and sworn to support, forbade 
the Federal Government to control, as to slavery, in 
the Federal Territories. Thus the twenty-one acted; 
and, as actions speak louder than words, so actions 
under such responsibility speak still louder. 

"Two of the twenty-three voted against Congres- 
sional prohibition of slavery in the Federal Territories, 
in the instances in which they acted upon the question. 
But for what reasons they so voted is not known. 
They may have done so because they thought a proper 
division of local from Federal authority, or some pro- 
vision or principle of the Constitution, stood in the 
way; or they may, without any such question, have 



394 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

voted against the prohibition on what appeared to them 
to be sufficient grounds of inexpediency. 

"No one who has sworn to support the Constitution 
can conscientiously vote for what he understands to be 
an unconstitutional measure, however expedient he 
may think it; but one may and ought to vote against a 
measure which he deems constitutional, if, at the same 
time, he deems it inexpedient. 

"It, therefore, would be unsafe to set down even the 
two who voted against the prohibition, as having done 
so, because, in their understanding, any proper division 
of local from Federal authority, or anything in the 
Constitution, forbade the Federal Government to con- 
trol as to slavery in Federal Territory. 

"The remaining sixteen of the 'thirty-nine,' so far 
as I have discovered, have left no record of their 
understanding upon the direct question of Federal con- 
trol of slaver}'' in the Federal Territories. But there is 
much reason to believe that their understanding upon 
that question would not have appeared different from 
that of their twenty-three compeers, had it been mani- 
fested at all. 

"For the purpose of adhering rigidly to the text, I 
purposely omitted whatever understanding may 
have been manifested by any person, however dis- 
tinguished, other than the 'thirty-nine' fathers who 
framed the original Constitution; and, for the same 
icwm, I have also omitted whatever understanding 
may have been manifested by any of the 'thirty-nine,' 
even on any Other phase of the general question of 
slavery. If we should look into their acts and declara- 
tions on these other phases, as the foreign slave trade, 
and the morality and policy of slavery generally, it 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 395 

would appear to us that on the direct question of 
Federal control of slavery in Federal Territories, the 
sixteen, if they had acted at all, would probably have 
acted just as the twenty-three did. Among that six- 
teen were several of the most noted anti-slavery men 
of the times — as Dr. Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, 
and Gouverneur Morris — while there is not one now 
known to have been otherwise, unless it may have been 
John Rutledge, of South Carolina. 

SUMMARY. 

"The sum of the whole is, that of our 'thirty-nine' 
fathers who framed the original Constitution, twenty- 
one — a clear majority of the whole — certainly under- 
stood that no proper division of local from Federal 
authority, nor any part of the Constitution, forbade 
the Federal Government to control slavery in the 
Federal Territories; while all the rest probably had 
the same understanding. Such, unquestionably, was 
the understanding of our fathers who framed the orig- 
inal Constitution; and the text affirms that they 
understood the question better than we. 

AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION 

"But, so far, I have been considering the under- 
standing of the question manifested by the framers of 
the original Constitution. In and by the original 
instrument, a mode was provided for amending it ; and, 
as I have already stated, the present frame of Govern- 
ment under which we live consists of that original and 
twelve amendatory articles framed and adopted since. 



396 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

"Those who now insist that Federal control of slav- 
ery in Federal Territories violates the Constitution, 
point us to the provisions which they suppose it thus 
violates ; and, as I understand, they all fix upon pro- 
visions in these amendatory articles, and not in the 
original instrument. The Supreme Court, in the Dred 
Scott case, plant themselves upon the fifth amendment, 
which provides that 'no person shall be deprived of 
property without due process of law' ; while Senator 
Douglas and his peculiar adherents plant themselves 
upon the tenth amendment, providing that 'the powers 
granted by the Constitution are reserved to the States 
respectively, and to the people. ' 

"Now, it so happens that these amendments were 
framed by the first Congress which sat under the Con- 
stitution — the identical Congress which passed the act 
already mentioned, enforcing the prohibition of slavery 
in the Northwestern Territory. Not only was it the 
same Congress, but they were the identical, same indi- 
vidual men who, at the same session, and at the same 
time within the session, had under consideration, and 
in progress toward maturity, these constitutional 
amendments and this act prohibiting slavery in all the 
territory the nation then owned. The constitutional 
amendments were introduced before and passed after 
the act enforcing the ordinance of 1787, so that dur- 
ing the whole pendency of the act to enforce the ordi- 
nance, the constitutional amendments were also 
pending. 

"That Congress, consisting of all the seventy-six 
members, including sixteen of the framers of the orig- 
inal Constitution, as before stated, were pre-eminently 
our fathers who framed that part of the Government 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 397 

under which we live, which is now claimed as forbid- 
ding the Federal Government to control slavery in the 
Federal Territories. 

"Is it not a little presumptuous in any one at this 
day to affirm that the two things which that Congress 
deliberately framed, and carried to maturity at the 
same time, are absolutely inconsistent with each other? 
And does not such affirmation become impudently 
absurd with the other affirmation from the same mouth, 
that those who did the two things alleged to be incon- 
sistent, understood whether they really were incon- 
sistent better than we — better than he who affirms that 
they are inconsistent? 

"It is surely safe to assume that the 'thirty-nine' 
framers of the original Constitution, and the seventy- 
six members of the Congress which framed the amend- 
ments thereto, taken together, do certainly include 
those who may be fairly called our fathers who framed 
the Government under which we live. And so assum- 
ing, I defy any man to show that auy one of them ever 
in his whole life declared that, in his understanding, 
any proper division of local from Federal authority, or 
any part of the Constitution, forbade the Federal Gov- 
ernment to control slavery in the Federal territories. 



I GO A STEP FARTHER. 

"I go a step farther. I defy any one to show that 
any living man in the whole world ever did, prior to 
the beginning of the present century (and I might 
almost say prior to the beginning of the last half of the 
present century), declare that, in his understanding, 



398 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

any proper division of local from Federal authority, or 
any part of the Constitution, forbade the Federal 
Government to control as to slavery in the Federal 
Territories. 

"To those who now so declare, I give, not only 'our 
fathers who framed the Government under which we 
live,' but with them all other living men within the 
century in which it was framed, among whom to 
search, and they shall not be able to find the evidence 
of a single man agreeing with them. 



LET THERE BE NO MISUNDERSTANDING. 

"Now, and here, let me guard a little against being 
misunderstood. I do not mean to say we are bound to 
follow implicitly in whatever our fathers did. To do 
so would be to discard all the lights of current experi- 
ences — to reject all progress — all improvement. What 
I do say is, that if we would supplant the opinions and 
policy of our fathers in any case, we should do so upon 
evidence so conclusive, and argument so clear, that 
even their great authority, fairly considered and 
weighed, cannot stand, and most surely not in a case 
whereof we ourselves declare they understood the ques- 
tion better than we. 

"It any man, at this clay, sincerely believes that a 
proper division of local from Federal authority, or any 
part of the Constitution, forbids the Federal Govern- 
ment to control as to slavery in the Federal Territories, 
he is right to say so, and to enforce his position by all 
truthful evidence and fair argument which he can. 

"But he lias ii" right to mislead others, who have 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 399 

less access to history and less leisure to study it, 
into the false belief that 'our fathers who framed the 
Government under which we live' were of the same 
opinion — thus substituting falsehood and deception for 
truthful evidence and fair argument. 

"If any man at this day sincerely believes 'our 
fathers who framed the Government under which we 
live* used and applied principles, in other cases, which 
ought to have led them to understand that a proper 
division of local from Federal authority, or some part 
of the Constitution, forbids the Federal Government to 
control slavery in the Federal Territories, he is right 
to do so. 

"But he should, at the same time, brave the responsi- 
bility of declaring that, in his opinion, he understands 
their principles better than they did themselves ; and 
especially should he not shirk that responsibility by 
asserting that they 'understood the question just as 
well, and even better, than we do now.' 

"But enough. Let all who believe that 'our fathers 
who framed the Government under which we live, 
understood this question just as well, and even better 
than we do now, ' speak as they spoke, and act as they 
acted upon it. This is all Republicans ask — all Repub- 
licans desire — in relation to slavery. As those fathers 
marked it, so let it again be marked, as an evil not to 
be extended, but to be tolerated and protected only 
because of and so far as, its actual presence among us 
makes that toleration and protection a necessity. Let 
all the guarantees those fathers gave it, be, not 
grudgingly, but fully and fairly, maintained. For this 
Republicans contend, and with this, so far as I know or 
believe, they will be content. 



4 oo LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

A FEW WORDS FROM MR. LINCOLN TO THE 
SOUTHERN PEOPLE. 

"And now, if they would listen — as I suppose they 
will not — I would address a few words to the Southern 
people. 

"I would say to them: You consider yourselves a 
reasonable and just people, and I consider that in the 
general qualities of reason and justice you are not 
inferior to any other people. Still, when you speak of 
us Republicans you do so only to denounce us as 
reptiles, or, at the best, as no better than outlaws. 
You will grant a hearing to pirates or murderers, but 
nothing like it to 'Black Republicans.' In all your 
contentions with one another, each of you deems an 
unconditional condemnation of 'Black Republicanism' 
as the first thing to be attended to. Indeed, such con- 
demnation of us seems to be an indispensable pre- 
requisite — license, so to speak — among you, to be 
admitted or permitted to speak at all. 

"Now, can you, or not, be prevailed upon to pause 
and consider whether this is quite just to us, or even to 
yourselves? 

"BRING FORWARD YOUR CHARGES." 

"Brin,^ forward your charges and specifications, and 
then be patient long enough to hear us deny or justify. 

"You say we are sectional. We deny it. That 
makes an issue; and the burden of the proof is upon 
you. You produce your proof; and what is it? Why, 
that our party lias no existenee in your 'section — gets 
n<> votes in yow seetion. The fact is substantially 
true; but does it prove the issue? If it does, then, in 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 401 

case we should, without change of principle, begin to 
get votes in your section, we should thereby cease to 
be sectional. 

"You cannot escape this conclusion; and yet, are 
you willing to abide by it? If you are, you will prob- 
ably soon find that we have ceased to be sectional, for 
we shall get votes in your section this very year. You 
will then begin to discover, as the truth plainly is, that 
your proof does not touch the issue. 

"The fact that we get no votes in your section, is a 
fact of your own making, and not of ours; but this 
brings you to where you ought to have started — to a 
discussion of the right or wrong of our principle. If 
our principle, put in practice, would wrong your sec- 
tion for the benefit of ours, or for any other object, 
then our principle, and we with it, are sectional, and 
are justly exposed and denounced as such. Meet us, 
then, on the question of whether our principle, put in 
practice, would wrong your section ; and so meet it as 
if it were possible that something may be said on our 
side. 

"Do you accept the challenge? No? Then you 
really believe the principle which 'our fathers who 
framed the Government under which we live,' thought 
so clearly right as to adopt it and indorse it again and 
again, upon their official oaths, is, in fact, so clearly 
wrong as to demand your condemnation without a 
moment's consideration. 

COULD WASHINGTON SPEAK, WHAT WOULD 
HE SAY? 

"Some of you delight to flaunt in our faces the 
warning against sectional parties given by Washington 



4 o2 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

in his Farewell Address. Less than eight years before 
Washington gave that warning, he had, as President 
of the United States, approved and signed an act of 
.•.ess enforcing the prohibition of slavery in the 
Northwestern Territory, which act embodied the policy 
of the Government upon that subject, up to and at, the 
very moment he penned that warning; and about one 
year after he penned it, he wrote Lafayette that he 
considered that prohibition a wise measure, expressing, 
in the same connection, his hope that we should at 
some time have a Confederacy of free States. 

" Bearing this in mind, and seeing that sectionalism 
has since arisen on this same subject, is that warning a 
weapon in your hands against us, or in our hands 
against you? Could Washington himself speak, would 
he cast that blame of sectionalism upon us, who sus- 
tain his policy, or upon you, who repudiate it? We 
respect that warning of Washington, and we commend 
it to you, together with his example pointing to the 
right application of it. 



WHAT IS CONSERVATISM' 

"But you say you are conservative — eminently con- 
servative — while we are revolutionary, destructive, or 
something of the sort. What is conservatism? Is it 
not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and 
untried? We stick to, contend for, the identical old 
policy, on the point of controversy, which was adopted 
by our lathers who framed the Government under 
which we live-; while you, with one accord, reject, and 
lil upon that old policy, and insist upon 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 403 

substituting something new. True, you disagree 
among yourselves as to what that substitute shall be. 
You have considerable variety of new propositions and 
plans, but you are unanimous in rejecting and denounc- 
ing the old policy of the fathers. 

"Some of you are for reviving the foreign slave 
trade; some for a Congressional slave code for the Ter- 
ritories; some for Congress forbidding the Territories 
to prohibit slavery within their limits; some for main- 
taining slavery in the Territories through the judi- 
ciary; some for the 'gur-reat pur-rinciple' that 'if one 
man should enslave another, no third man should 
object,' fantastically called 'Popular Sovereignty'; but 
never a man among you in favor of Federal prohibition 
of slavery in Federal Territories, according to the 
practice of our fathers who framed the Government 
under which we live. 

"Not one of all your various plans can show a prec- 
edent or an advocate in the century within which our 
Government originated. Consider, then, whether your 
claim of conservatism for yourselves and your charge 
of destructiveness against us, are based on the most 
clear and stable foundations. 



WE DENY IT. 

"Again, you say we have made the slavery question 
more prominent than it formerly was. We deny it. 
We admit that it is more prominent, but we deny that 
we made it so. It was not we, but you, who discarded 
the old policy of the fathers. We resisted, and still 
resist, your innovation, and thence comes the greater 



4 o 4 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

prominence of the question. Would you have that 
question reduced to its former proportions? Go back 
to that old policy. What has been will be again, under 
the same conditions. If you would have the peace of 
the old times, readopt the precepts and policy of the 
old times. You charge that we stir up insurrections 
among your slaves. We deny it; and what is your 
proof? Harper's Ferry! John Brown! John Brown 
was no Republican; and you have failed to implicate a 
single Republican in his Harper's Ferry enterprise. 

"If any member of our party is guilty in that matter, 
you know it or you do not know it. If you do know it, 
you are inexcusable to not designate the man and 
prove the fact. If you do not know it, you are inex- 
cusable to assert it, and especially to persist in the 
assertion after you have tried and failed to make the 
proof. You need not be told that persisting in a 
charge which one does not know to be true is simply 
malicious slander. 



'•WE DO NOT BELIEVE IT." 

"Some of you admit that no Republican designedly 
aided or encouraged the Harper's Ferry affair, but still 
insist that our doctrines and declarations necessarily 
to SUCh results. We do not believe it. We know 
we hold to no doctrines and make no declarations 
which weir not held to and made by our fathers who 
framed the Government under which we live. You 
alt fairly by us in relation to this affair. 
When it occurred, some important State elections were 
near at hand, and you were in evident glee with the 

: that by charging the blame upon us you could 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 405 

get an advantage of us in those elections. The elec- 
tions came, and your expectations were not fulfilled. 
Every Republican man knew that, as to himself at 
least, your charge was a slander, and he was not much 
inclined by it to cast his vote in your favor. Repub- 
lican doctrines and declarations are accompanied with 
a continual protest against any interference whatever 
with your slaves, or with you about your slaves. 

"Surely this does not encourage them to revolt. 
True, we do, in common with our fathers who framed 
the Government under which we live, declare our 
belief that slavery is wrong ; but the slaves do not hear 
us declare even this. For anything we say or do the 
slaves would scarcely know that there was a Repub- 
lican party. I believe they would not, in fact, gener- 
ally know it but for your misrepresentations of us in 
their hearing. In your political contests among your- 
selves, each faction charges the other with sympathy 
with Black Republicanism ; and then, to give point to 
the charge, defines Black Republicanism to simply be 
insurrection, blood and thunder among the slaves. 

INSURRECTION IMPOSSIBLE. 

"Slave insurrections are no more common now than 
they were before the Republican party was organized. 
What induced the Southampton insurrection, twenty- 
eight years ago, in which at least three times as many 
lives were lost as at Harper's Ferry? You can scarcely 
stretch your very elastic fancy to the conclusion that 
Southampton was got up by Black Republicanism. In 
the present state of things in the United States, I do 
not think a general or even a very extensive slave 



4 o6 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

insurrection is possible. The indispensable concert of 
action cannot be attained. The slaves have no means 
of rapid communication; nor can incendiary free men, 
. or white, supply it. The explosive materials are 
everywhere in parcels; but there neither are, nor can 
be supplied, the indispensable connecting trains. 

"Much is said by Southern people about the affec- 
tion of slaves for their masters and mistresses; and a 
part of it, at least, is true. A plot for an uprising- 
could scarcely be devised and communicated to twenty 
individuals before some one of them, to save the life of 
a favorite master or mistress, would divulge it. This is 
the rule; and a slave revolution in Hayti was not an 
exception to it, but a case occurring under peculiar cir- 
cumstances. The gunpowder plot of British history, 
;h not connected with slaves, was more in point. 
In that case only about twenty were admitted to the 
secret; and yet one of them, in his anxiety to save a 
friend, betrayed the plot to that friend, and, by conse- 
quence, averted the calamity. 

"Occasional poisonings from the kitchen, and open 

or stealthy assassinations in the field, and local revolt 

extended to a score or so, will continue to occur as the 

natural results of slavery, but no general insurrection 

ives, as I think, can happen in this country fur a 

lime. Whoever much fears, or much hopes, for 

an event, will be alike disappointed. 

languagi of Mr. fefferson, uttered many 

, 'It is still in our power to direct the process 

tion and deportation peaceably, and in 

such Blow degrees, as that the evil will wear oil" 

DSibly; and their places be, pari passu, filled up b)' 

white laborers, It', on the contrary, it is left to 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 407 

force itself on, human nature must shudder at the pros- 
pect held up. ' 

"Mr. Jefferson did not mean to say, nor do I, that 
the power of emancipation is in the Federal Govern- 
ment. He spoke of Virginia, and, as to the power of 
emancipation, I speak of the slave-holding States only. 

"The Federal Government, however, as we insist, 
has the power of restraining the extension of the 
institution — the power to insure that a slave insurrec- 
tion shall never occur on any American soil which is 
now free from slavery. 



JOHN BROWN. 

"John Brown's effort was peculiar. It was not a 
slave insurrection. It was an attempt by white men to 
get lip a revolt among slaves, in which the slaves 
refused to participate. In fact, it was so absurd that 
the slaves, with all their ignorance, saw plainly enough 
that it could not succeed. That affair, in its philos- 
ophy, corresponds with the many attempts related in 
history, at the assassination of kings and emperors. 
An enthusiast broods over the oppression of a people 
till he fancies himself commissioned by Heaven to 
liberate them. He ventures the attempt, which ends 
in little else than in his own execution. 

"Orsini's attempt on Louis Napoleon, and John 
Brown's attempt at Harper's Ferry, were, in their 
philosophy, precisely the same. The eagerness to cast 
blame on old England in the one case, and on New 
England in the other, does not disprove the sameness 
of the two things. 



4 o8 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

"And how much would it avail you if you could, by 
the use of John Brown, Helper's Book, and the like, 
break up the Republican organization? Human action 
can be modified to some extent, but human nature 
cannot be changed. There is a judgment and a feeling 
against slavery in this nation, which cast at least a mil- 
lion and a half votes! You cannot destroy that judg- 
ment and feeling — that sentiment — by breaking up the 
political organization which rallies around it. 

"You can scarcely scatter and disperse an army 
which has been formed into order in the face of your 
heaviest fire; but if you could, how much would you 
gain by forcing the sentiment which created it out of 
the peaceful channel of the ballot-box into some other 
channel' What would that other channel probably be? 
Would the number of John Browns be lessened or 
enlarged by the operation? 



"RULE OR RUIN." 

"But you will break up the Union, rather than sub- 
mit to a denial of your Constitutional rights. 

"That has a somewhat reckless sound; but it would 
be palliated, if not fully justified, were we proposing, 
by the mere force of numbers, to deprive you of some 
right, plainly written down in the Constitution. But 
we are proposing no such thing. 

"When you make these declarations, you have a 
Bpecific and well-understood allusion to an assumed 
Constitutional right of yours, to take slaves into the 
Federal Territories, and to hold them their as prop- 
erty. But no Btich ri^ht is specifically written in the 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 409 

Constitution. That instrument is literally silent about 
any such right. We, on the contrary, deny that such 
a right has any existence in the Constitution, even by 
implication. 

"Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is, that you will 
destroy the Government unless you be allowed to con- 
strue and enforce the Constitution as you please, on all 
the points in dispute between you and us. You will 
rule or ruin in all events. This, plainly stated, is your 
language to us. 

"NOT QUITE SO." 

"Perhaps you will say the Supreme Court has 
decided the disputed constitutional question in your 
favor. Not quite so. But, waiving the lawyer's dis- 
tinction between dictum and decision, the court has 
decided the question for you in a sort of way. The 
court has substantially said it is your Constitutional 
right to take slaves into the Federal Territories, and to 
hold them there as property. 

"When I say the decision was made in a sort of way, 
I mean it was made in a divided court, by a bare 
majority of the judges, and they not quite agreeing 
with one another; that its avowed supporters disagree 
with one another about its meaning; and that it was 
mainly based upon a mistaken statement of fact — the 
statement in the opinion that 'the right of property in 
a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Con- 
stitution. ' 

"An inspection of the Constitution will show that 
the right of property in a slave is not distinctly and 
expressly affirmed in it. Bear in mind, the judges do 



4 io LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

not pledge their judicial opinion that such right is 
implicitly affirmed in the Constitution; but they pledge 
their veracity that it is distinctly and expressly affirmed 
there — 'distinctly' — that is, not mingled with anything 
else — 'expressly' — that is, in words meaning just that, 
without the aid of any inference, and susceptible of no 
other meaning. 

"If they had only pledged their judicial opinion, that 
such right is affirmed in the instrument by implication, 
it would be open to others to show that, neither the 
word 'slave,' nor 'slavery,' is to be found in the Consti- 
tution, nor the word 'property' even, in any connection 
with language alluding to the things slave or slavery, 
and that wherever, in that instrument, the slave is 
alluded to, he is called 'a person,' and wherever his 
master's legal right in relation to him is alluded to, it 
is spoken of as 'service or labor due,' as a 'debt' pay- 
able in service or labor. 

"Also, it would be open to show, by contemporaneous 
history, that this mode of alluding to slaves and slav- 
er)-, instead oi speaking of them, was employed on 
purpose to exclude from the Constitution the idea that 
there could be property in man. 

"To show all this is easy and certain. 

"When the obvious mistake of the judges shall be 
brought to their notice, is it not reasonable to expect 
that they will withdraw the mistaken statement, and 
insider the Conclusion based upon it' 

"And tia ii it is to be remembered that 'our fathers 

who framed the Government under which we live' — 

ien who made the Constitution — decided this same 

1 titutional question in our favor, longago — decided 

it without a division among themselves about the 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 411 

meaning of it after it was made, so far as any evidence 
is left, without basing it upon any mistaken statements 
of facts. 

"Under all these circumstances, do you really feel 
yourself justified co break up this Government, unless 
such a court decision as yours is shall be at once sub- 
mitted to as a conclusive and final rule of political 
action? 

"But you will not abide the election of a Republican 
President! In that supposed event, you say, you will 
destroy the Union ; and then, you say, the great crime 
of having destroyed it will be upon us? 

"This is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my 
ear, and mutters through his teeth, ' Stand and deliver, 
or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!' 

"To be sure, what the robber demanded of me — 
my money — was my own, and I had a clear right to 
keep it; but it was no more my own than my vote is 
my own ; and the threat of death to me, to extort my 
money, and the threat of destruction to the Union, to 
extort my vote, can scarcely be distinguished in prin- 
ciple. 

A FEW WORDS TO THE REPUBLICANS. 

"A few words now to Republicans. It is exceed- 
ingly desirable that all parts of this great Confed- 
eracy shall be at peace, and in harmony, with one 
another. Let us Republicans do our part to have it so. 
Even though much provoked, let us do nothing through 
passion and ill-temper. Even though the Southern 
people will not so much as listen to us, let us calmly 
consider their demand, and yield to them if, in our 



4 i2 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

deliberate view of our duty, we possibly can. Judging 
by all they say and do, and by the subject and nature 
of their controversy with us, let us determine, if wc 
can, what will satisfy them. 

"Will they be satisfied if the Territories be uncondi- 
tionally surrendered to them? We know they will not. 
In all their present complaints against us, the Terri- 
tories are scarcely mentioned. Invasions and insur- 
rections are the rage now. Will it satisfy them if, in 
the future, we have nothing to do with invasions and 
insurrections? We know it will not. We so know 
because we know we never had anything to do with 
invasions and insurrections; and yet this total abstain- 
ing does not exempt us from the charge and the 
denunciation. 

"The question recurs, what will satisfy them? Sim- 
ply this: We must not only let them alone, but we 
must, somehow, convince them that we do let them 
alone. This we know by experience is no easy task. 
We have been so trying to convince them from the 
very beginning of our organization, but with no suc- 
cess. In all our platform and speeches, we have con- 
stantly protested our purpose to let them alone; but 
this had no tendency to convince them. Alike unavail- 
ing to convince them is the fact that they have never 
ted a man of us in any attempt to disturb them. 

"These natural and apparently adequate means all 

failing, what will convince them? This, and this only: 

to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it 

right. And this must be done thoroughly — done in 

■ • 11 as words. Silence will not be tolerated — 

we must plan- ourselves avowedly with them. Doug- 
new sedition law must be enacted, and enforced, 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 413 

suppressing all declarations that slavery is wrong, 
whether made in politics, in presses, in pulpits, or in 
private. We must arrest and return their fugitive 
slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull down our 
Free State Constitutions. The whole atmosphere must 
be disinfected from all taint of opposition to slavery, 
before they will cease to believe that all their troubles 
proceed from us. 

"I am quite aware they do not state their case pre- 
cisely in this way. Most of them would probably say 
to us, 'Let us alone, do nothing to us, and say what 
you please about slavery.' But we do let them 
alone — have never disturbed them — so that, after 
all, it is what we say which dissatisfies them. They 
will continue to accuse us of doing until we cease 
saying. 

"I am also aware they have not, as yet, in terms, 
demanded the overthrow of our Free State Constitu- 
tions. Yet those constitutions declare the wrong of 
slavery with more solemn emphasis than do all other 
sayings against it; and when all other sayings shall 
have been silenced, the overthrow of these constitu- 
tions will be demanded, and nothing be left to resist 
the demand. It is nothing to the contrary that they do 
not demand the whole of this just now. Demanding 
what they do, and for the reason they do, they can 
voluntarily stop nowhere short of this consummation. 
Holding, as they do, that slavery is morally and socially 
elevating, they cannot cease to demand a full 
national recognition of it, as a legal right and a social 
blessing. 

"Nor can we justifiably withhold this on any ground, 
save our conviction that slavery is wrong. If slavery 



4 i4 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

is right, all words, acts, laws, and Constitutions 
against it are themselves wrong, and should be silenced 
and swept away. If it is right, we cannot justly object 
to its nationality — its universality; if it is wrong, they 
cannot justly insist upon its extension — its enlarge- 
ment. All they ask we could readily grant, if we 
thought slavery right ; all we ask they could as readily 
grant, if they thought it wrong. 

"Their thinking it right, and our thinking it wrong, 
is the precise fact upon which depends the whole con- 
troversy. Thinking it right, as they do, they are not 
to blame for desiring its full recognition, as being 
right; but thinking it wrong, as we do, can we yield to 
them? Can we cast our votes with their view and 
against our own? In view of our moral, social, and 
political responsibility, can we do this? 

"Wrong as we may think slavery is, we can yet 
afford to let it alone where it is, because that much is 
due to the necessity arising from its actual presence in 
the nation; but can we, while our votes will prevent it, 
allow it to spread into the national Territories, and to 
overrun us heie in these free States? 

"If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by 
our duty fearlessly ami effectively. Let us be diverted 
by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we 
are so industriously plied ami belabored — contrivances, 
such as groping for some middle ground between the 
right and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who 
should be neither a living man nor a dead man— such 
as a policy of "don't care" on a question about which 

all true men do care — such as Union appeals, beseech- 
true Union men to yield to disunionists, reversing 

the divine rule, and calling, not the sinners, but the 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 415 

righteous to repentance — such as invocations of Wash- 
ington—imploring men to unsay what Washington said 
— and undo what Washington did. 

"Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false 
accusations against us, nor frightened from it by 
menaces of destruction to the Government, nor of 
dungeons to ourselves. 

"Let us have faith that Right makes Might; and in 
that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as we 
understand it." 



FIRST SPEECH AFTER HIS NOMINATION. 
(To the Committee, Springfield, 111., May 19, i860.) 

"Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Committee: 
I tender to you, and through you, to the Republican 
National Convention, and all the people represented in 
it, my profoundest thanks for the high honor done me, 
which you now formally announce. Deeply and even 
painfully sensible of the great responsibility which I 
could wish had fallen upon some one of the far more 
eminent men and experienced statesmen whose dis- 
tinguished names were before the Convention, I shall, 
by your leave, consider more fully the resolutions of 
the Convention denominated the platform, and, with- 
out unnecessary and unreasonable delay, respond to 
you, Mr. Chairman, in writing, not doubting that the 
platform will be found satisfactory and the nomination 
gratefully accepted. And now I will not longer defer 
the pleasure of taking you, and each of you, by the 
hand." 



4 i6 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S ADIEU TO SPRINGFIELD. 

On Monday, February n, 1861, at 8 a. m., President 
Lincoln left Springfield. After exchanging a parting 
salutation with his wife, he took his stand on the plat- 
form, removed his hat, and, asking silence, spoke as 
follows to the multitude that sood in respectful silence 
and with their heads uncovered: 

"My Friends: No one, not in my position, can 
appreciate the sadness I feel at this parting. To this 
people f owe all that I am. Here I have lived more 
than a quarter of a century, here my children were 
born, and here one of them lies buried. 

"I know not how soon I shall see you again. A 
duty devolves upon me, which is, perhaps, greater than 
has devolved upon any other man since the days of 
Washington. 

"He never could have succeeded except for the aid 
of Divine Providence, upon which he at all times 
relied. I feel that I cannot succeed without the same 
Divine aid which sustained him; and in the same 
Almighty Being I place my reliance for support, and I 
hope you, my friends, will all pray that I may receive 
that Divine assistance without which I cannot succeed, 
but with which, success is certain. 

"Again, I hid you all an affectionate farewell." 
(Loud applause and cries of, "We will pray for you.") 

Towards the conclusion of the remarks, himself ami 
audience were moved to tears. His exhortation to 
pray elicited choked exclamations of, "We will doit, 
we will do it!" As he turned to enter the cars, three 
s were given, and a few seconds afterward the 
train moved slowly out of the sight of the silent 
gathering. 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 417 

SPEECH DELIVERED AT CINCINNATI, FEBRUARY 

12, l86l. 

"I have spoken but once, before this, in Cincinnati. 
That was a year previous to the great Presidential 
election. On that occasion, in a playful manner, but 
with sincere words, I addressed much of what I said to 
the Kentuckians. I gave my opinion, that we, as 
Republicans, would ultimately beat them as Demo- 
crats, but that they could postpone that result longer 
by nominating Senator Douglas for the Presidency 
than they could in any other way. They did not in 
any true sense of the word nominate Mr. Douglas, and 
the result has come certainly as soon as ever I 
expected. 

"I also told them how I expected they would be 
treated after they should have been beaten ; and now I 
wish to call their attention to what I then said upon the 
subject. I then said: 'When we do as we say, beat 
you, you perhaps want to know what we will do with 
you. I will tell you, as far as I am authorized to speak 
for the opposition, what we mean to do with you. We 
mean to treat you, as near as we possibly can, as 
Washington, Jefferson, and Madison treated you. We 
mean to leave you alone, and in no way to interfere 
with your institutions ; to abide by all and every com- 
promise of the Constitution, and, in a word, coming 
back to the original proposition, to treat you so far as 
degenerate men, if we have degenerated, may accord- 
ing to the example of those noble fathers, Washington, 
Jefferson, and Madison. 

" 'We mean to remember that you are as good as wc; 
that there is no difference of circumstances. We 
mean to recognize and bear in mind always that you 



4 x8 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

have as good hearts in your bosoms as other people, or 
as we claim to have, and treat you* accordingly. ' Fel- 
low citizens of Kentucky — friends and brethren, may I 
call you in your new position? — I see no occasion and 
feel no inclination to retract a word of this. If it shall 
not be made good, be assured the fault shall not be 
mine. ' ' 

LINCOLN'S SPEECH AT INDIANAPOLIS, FEBRUARY 

12, l86l. 

"Fellow Citizens of the State of Indiana: I am here 
to thank you very much for the magnificent welcome, 
and still more for the generous support given by your 
State to that political cause which I think is the true and 
just cause of the whole country and the whole world. 

"Solomon says there is a time to keep silence, and 
when men wrangle by the month, with no certainty that 
they mean the same thing while using the same word, 
it perhaps were as well if they would keep silence. 

"The words coercion and invasion are much used in 
these days and often with some temper and hot blood. 

"Let us make sure, if we can, that we do not mis- 
understand the meaning of those who use them. Let 
us j;et the exact definition of the words, not from the 
dictionaries, but from the men themselves, who cer- 
tainly deprecate the things they would represent by the 
use of the words. What, then, is coercion? What is 
invasion;- Would the marching of an army into South 
Carolina, without the consent of her people and with 
hostile intent towards them, be invasion? I certainly 
think it would ; and it would be coercion also if the South 
Carolinians were forced to submit. But if the United 
States should merely hold and retain its own forts and 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 419 

other property, and collect the duty on foreign im- 
portations, or even withhold the mails from places 
where they were habitually violated — would any or all 
these things be 'invasion' or 'coercion'? 

"Do our professed lovers of the Union, but who 
spitefully resolve that they will resist coercion and 
invasion, understand that such things as these, on the 
part of the United States, would be coercion or invasion 
of a State? If so, their ideas of means to preserve the 
object of their great affection would seem to be exceed- 
ingly thin and airy. If sick, the little pills of the 
homeopathist would be much too large for it to swal- 
low. In their view, the Union, as a family relation, 
would seem to be no regular marriage, but rather a 
sort of free love arrangement to be maintained on 
passionate attraction. 

"By the way, in what consists the special sacredness 
of a State? I speak not of the position assigned to the 
State in the Union by the Constitution, for that, by the 
bond, we all recognize. 

"That position, however, a State cannot carry out of 
the Union with it. 

"I speak of that assumed primary right of a State to 
rule all which is less than itself, and to ruin all that is 
larger than itself. 

"If a State and a county, in a given case, should be 
equal in extent of territory, and equal in number of 
inhabitants, in what, as a matter of principle, is the 
State better than the county? Would an exchange of 
names be an exchange of rights upon principles? 
On what rightful principle, may a State, being not more 
than one-fiftieth part of the nation in soil and popu- 
lation, break up the nation, and then coerce a propor- 



420 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 



tionally larger subdivision of itself, in the most 
arbitrary way? What mysterious right to play tyrant 
is conferred on a district of country with its people by 
merely calling it a State? Fellow-citizens, I am not 
asserting anything. I am merely asking questions for 
you to consider, and now allow me to bid you farewell. ' ' 



LINCOLN'S SPEECH AT COLUMBUS, OHIO, ON THIR- 
TEENTH OF FEBRUARY, 1861. 

He thus spoke to the Legislature and public: 
"Mr. President, and Mr. Speaker, and Gentlemen of 
. 1 j , , the General Assembly: 



It is true, as has been 
said by the President of 
the Senate, that a very 
great responsibility 
rests upon me in the 
position to which the 
votes of the American 
people have called me. 
"I am deeply sensible 
of that weighty respon- 
sibility. I cannot but 
know what yon all 
know, that without a 

name, perhaps without 
a reason why I should 

IDIDATE8 FOB PRMI- have a name, there has 

'"<' A»D M. I-IK. >|.,M f;llk>n up0 jj me a Usk 

such as did not rest even upon the Father of his 
Country; and so feeling, I cannot but turn and look 
foi that support without which it will be impossible 







LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 421 

for me to perform that great task. I turn, then, 
and look to the American people, and to that God 
who has never forsaken them. Allusions have been 
made to the interest felt in relation to the policy 
of the new Administration. In this I have received 
from some a degree of credit for having kept silence 
and from others deprecation. I still think I was 
right. In the varying and repeatedly shifting scenes 
of the present, and without a precedent which could 
enable me to judge by the past, it has seemed fit- 
ting, that, before speaking upon the difficulties of 
the country, I should have gained a view of the 
whole field, so as to be sure, after all — at liberty to 
modify and change the course of policy, as future 
events may make a change necessary. I have not 
maintained silence from any want of real anxiety. It 
is a good thing that there is no more than anxiety, for 
there is nothing going wrong. It is a consoling cir- 
cumstance that when we look out there is nothing that 
really hurts anybody. We entertain different views 
upon political questions, but nobody is suffering in 
anything. This is a most consoling circumstance, and 
from it we may conclude that all we want is time, 
patience, and a reliance on that God who has never 
forsaken this people. 

"Fellow-citizens, what I have said, I have said 
extemporaneously, and will now come to a close." 



LINCOLN'S SPEECH IN WASHINGTON. 
Delivered Wednesday, February 27, 1861, at his 
hotel. On Wednesday, the 27th, the Mayor and Com- 
mon Council of the city waited upon Mr. Lincoln and 



422 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

tendered him a welcome. He replied to them as fol- 
lows: 

"Mr. Mayor: I thank you, and through you the 
municipal authorities of this city who accompany you, 
for this welcome. And as it is the first time in my life 
since the present phase of politics has presented itself 
in this country, that I have said anything publicly 
within a region of country where the institution of 
slavery exists, I will take this occasion to say that I 
think very much of the ill feeling that has existed and 
still exists between the people in the sections from 
which I came and the people here, is dependent upon 
a misunderstanding of one another. I therefore avail 
myself of this opportunity to assure you, Mr. Mayor, 
and all the gentlemen present, that I have not now, 
and never have had, any other than as kindly feelings 
towards you as the people of my own section. I have 
not now, and never have had, any disposition to treat 
you in any respect otherwise than as my own neigh- 
bors. I have not now any purpose to withhold from 
you any of the benefits of the Constitution, under any 
circumstances, that I would not feel myself con- 
strained to withhold from my own neighbors; and I 
hope, in a word, that when we shall become better 
acquainted — and I say it with great confidence — we 
shall like each other the more. I thank you for the 
kindness of this reception." 



FIRST TALK AFTER HIS NOMINATION. 
The telegram was received in the Journal office at 
Springfield Immediately everybody wanted to shake 
his hand; and so long as he was willing, they continued 
to congratulate him. 




RECEPTION GIVEN BY LINCOLN. 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 425 

"Gentlemen [with a twinkle in his eye]: You had 
better come up and shake my hand while you can; 
honors elevate some men, you know. . . . Well, 
gentlemen, there is a little woman at our house who is 
probably more interested in this dispatch than I am ; 
and if you will excuse me, I will take it up to her and 
let her read it." 



LINCOLN'S FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

Delivered March 4, 1861, at Washington: 
' ' Fellow Citizens of the United States : In compliance 
with a custom as old as the Government itself, I appear 
before you to address you briefly, and to take, in 
your presence, the oath prescribed by the Constitution 
of the United States to be taken by the President 
before he enters on the execution of his office. 

POSITION STATED. 

"I do not consider it necessary, at present, for me to 
discuss those matters of administration about which 
there is no special anxiety or excitement. Apprehen- 
sion seems to exist among the people of the Southern 
States that, by the accession of a Republican adminis- 
tration, their property and their peace and personal 
security are to be endangered. There has never been 
any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, 
the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the 
while existed, and been open to their inspection. It 
is found in nearly all the published speeches of him 
who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of 
those speeches, when I declare that 4 I have no pur- 



426 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

pose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the insti- 
tution of slavery in the States where it exists.' I 
believe I have no lawful right to do so. Those who 
nominated and elected me did so with the full knowl- 
edge that I had made this, and made many similar 
declarations, and had never recanted them. And, 
more than this, they placed in the platform, for my 
acceptance, and as a law to themselves and to me, the 
clear and emphatic resolution which I now read: 

" 'Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the 
right of the States, and especially the right of each 
State, to order and control its own domestic j institu- 
tions according to its own judgment exclusively, is 
essential to that balance of power on which the perfec- 
tion and endurance of our political fabric depend ; and 
we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the 
soil of any State or Territory, no matter under what 
pretext, as among the gravest of crimes. ' 

"I now reiterate these sentiments; and in doing so I 
only press upon the public attention the most conclusive 
evidence of which the case is susceptible, that the 
property, peace, and security of no section are to be in 
any wise endangered by the now incoming administra- 
tion. 

"I add, too, that all the protection, which, consist- 
ently with the Constitution and the laws, can be given, 
will be given to all the States when lawfully demanded, 
for whatever cause, as cheerfully to one section as to 
another. 

"There is much controversy about the delivering up 
of fugitives from service or labor. The clause I now 
read is as plainly written in the Constitution as any 
other of its provisions: 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 427 

" 'No person held to service or labor in one State 
under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in 
consequence of any law or regulation therein, be dis- 
charged from such service or labor, but shall be deliv- 
ered up on claim of the party to whom such service or 
labor may be due. ' 

"It is scarcely questioned that this provision was 
intended by those who made it for the reclaiming of 
what we call fugitive slaves ; and the intention of the 
lawgiver is the law. 

"AH the members of Congress swear their support 
to the whole Constitution — to this provision as well as 
any other. 

"To the proposition, then, that slaves whose cases 
come within the terms of this clause, 'shall be delivered 
up, ' their oaths are unanimous. Now, if they would 
make the effort in good temper, could they not, with 
nearly equal unanimity, frame and pass a law by means 
of which to keep good that unanimous oath? 

"There is some difference of opinion whether this 
clause should be enforced by national or by State 
authority; but surely that difference is not a very 
material one. 

"If the slave is to be surrendered, it can be of little 
consequence to him or to others by which authority it 
is done ; and should any one, in any case, be content 
that this oath shall go unkept on a mere inconse- 
quential controversy as to how it shall be kept? 

"Again, in any law upon this subject, ought not all 
the safeguards of liberty known in civilized and 
humane jurisprudence to be introduced, so that a free 
man be not, in any case, surrendered as a slave? And 
might it not be well at the same time to provide by law 



428 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

for the enforcement of that clause in the Constitution 
which guarantees that 'the citizens of each State shall 
be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of 
citizens in the several States'? 

NO MENTAL RESERVATION. 

"I take the official oath to-day with no mental reser- 
vations, and with no purpose to construe the Consti- 
tution or laws by any hypercritical rules; and while I 
do not choose now to specify particular acts of Con- 
gress as proper to be enforced, I do suggest that it will 
be much safer for all, both in official and private 
stations, to conform to and abide by all those acts 
which stand unrepealed, than to violate any of them, 
trusting to find impunity in having them held to be 
unconstitutional. 

"It is seventy-two years since the first inauguration 
of a President under our national Constitution. Dur- 
ing that period fifteen different and very distinguished 
citizens have in succession administered the executive 
branch of the Government. They have conducted it 
through many perils, and generally with great success. 
Yet, with all this scope for precedent, I now enter upon 
the same task for the brief Constitutional term of four 
years, under great and peculiar difficulties. 

I HOLD THE UNION OF THESE STATES IS 
PERPETUAL. 

"A disruption of the Federal Union, heretofore only 
menaced, is now formidably attempted. I hold that in 
the contemplation of universal law and of the Constitu- 
tion, the Union of these States is perpetual. Per- 
petuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 429 

law of all national governments. It is safe to assert 
that no government proper ever had a provision in its 
organic law for its own termination. Continue to 
execute all the express provisions of our national Con- 
stitution, and the Union will endure forever, it being 
impossible to destroy except by some action not pro- 
vided for in the instrument itself. 

"Again, if the United States be not a government 
proper, but an association of States in the nature of a 
contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably 
unmade by less than all the parties who made it? One 
party to a contract may violate it — break it, so to 
speak; but does it not require all to lawfully rescind it? 
Descending from these general principles, we find the 
proposition that in legal contemplation the Union is 
perpetual, confirmed by the history of the Union itself. 

"The Union is much older than the Constitution. 
It was formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association 
in 1774. It was matured and continued in the Declara- 
tion of Independence in 1776. It was further matured, 
and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly 
plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by 
the Articles of the Confederation in 1778; and, finally, 
in 1787, one of the declared objects for ordaining and 
establishing the Constitution was 'to form a more per- 
fect union. ' But if destruction of the Union by one, 
or by a part only of the States, be lawfully possible, the 
union is less perfect than before, the Constitution hav- 
ing lost the vital element of perpetuity. 

"It follows from these views, that no State, upon its 
own mere motion, can lawfully get out of the Union ; 
that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally 
void, and that acts of violence within any State or 



43 o LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

States, against the authority of the United States, are 
insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circum- 
stances. 

"I, therefore, consider that, in view of the Constitu- 
tion and the laws, the Union is unbroken, and to the 
extent of my ability, I shall take care, as the Constitu- 
tion itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of 
the Union shall be faithfully executed in all the States. 
Doing this, which I deem to be only a simple duty on 
my part, I shall perfectly perform it, so far as is prac- 
ticable, unless my rightful masters, the American 
people, shall withhold the requisition, or in some 
authoritative manner direct the contrary. 

"I trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but 
only as the declared purpose of the Union that it will 
constitutionally defend and maintain itself. 

"In doing this there need be no bloodshed or 
violence ; and there shall be none unless it is forced 
upon the national authority. 

WHAT SHALL BE DONE? 

"The power confided to me will be used to hold, 
occupy, and possess the property and places belonging 
to the Government, and collect the duties and imposts; 
but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, 
there will be no invasion, no using of force against or 
among the people anywhere. 

"Where hostility to the United States shall he so 
great and so universal as to prevent the competent 
reBldent citizens from holding federal offices, there will 
be no attempt to force obnoxious strangers anion- the 
people that object. While the strict legal right may 
exist in the Government to enforce the exercise of 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 431 

these offices, the attempt to do so would be so irritat- 
ing, and so nearly impracticable withal, that I deem it 
best to forego, for the time, the uses of such offices. 

"The mails, unless repelled, will continue to be fur- 
nished in all parts of the Union. 

"So far as possible, the people everywhere shall 
have that sense of perfect security which is most 
favorable to calm thought and reflection. 
• "The course here indicated will be followed, unless 
current events and experience shall show a modifica- 
tion or change to be proper ; and in every case and 
exigency my best discretion will be exercised accord- 
ing to the circumstances actually existing, and with a 
view and hope of a peaceable solution of the national 
troubles, and the restoration of fraternal sympathies 
and affections. 

4 ' That there are persons in one section or another 
who seek to destroy the Union at all events, and are 
glad of any pretext to do it, I will neither affirm nor 
deny. But if there be such, I need address no word 
to them. 

A WORD TO THOSE WHO LOVE THE UNION. 

"To those, however, who love the Union, may I not 
speak, before entering upon so grave a matter as the 
destruction of our national fabric, with all its benefits, 
its memories and its hopes? Would it not be well to 
ascertain why we do it? Will you hazard so desperate 
a step, while there is any possibility that any portion 
of the ills you fly from have no real existence? Will 
you, while the certain ills you fly to are greater 
than all the real ones you fly from— will you risk 
the commission of so fearful a mistake? All pro- 



432 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

fess to be content in the Union, if all Constitutional 
rights can be maintained. Is it true, then, that any 
right, plainly written in the Constitution, has been 
denied? I think not. Happily the human mind is so 
constituted that no party can reach to the audacity of 
doing this. 

"Think, if you can, of a single instance in which 
a plainly-written provision of the Constitution has ever 
been denied. If, by the mere force of numbers, a 
majority should deprive a minority of any clearly- 
written Constitutional right, it might, in a moral point 
of view, justify revolution; it certainly would, if such 
a right were a vital one. But such is not our case. 

"All the vital rights of minorities and of individuals 
are so plainly assured to them by affirmations and 
negations, guarantees and prohibitions in the Constitu- 
tion, that controversies never arise concerning them. 
But no organic law can ever be framed with provision 
specifically applicable to every question which may 
occur in practical administration. No foresight can 
anticipate, nor any document of reasonable length con- 
tain, express provisions for all possible questions. 
Shall fugitives from labor be surrendered by national 
or by State authorities? The Constitution does not 
expressly say. Must Congress protect slavery in the 
territories? The Constitution does not expressly say. 
From questions of this class spring all our Constitu- 
tional controversies, and we divide upon them into 
majorities and minorities. 

THE MAJORITIES VS. THE MINORITIES. 

"If the minority did not acquiesce, the majority 
must, or the Government must cease. There is no 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 433 

alternative for continuing the Government acquiescence 
on the one side or the other. If a minority in such a 
case will secede rather than acquiesce, they make a 
precedent, which, in time, will ruin and divide them, 
for a minority of their own will secede from them 
whenever a majority refuses to be controlled by such a 
minority. For instance, why may not any portion of a 
new confederacy a year or two hence arbitrarily secede 
again, precisely as portions of the present Union now 
claim to secede from it? All who cherish disunion 
sentiments are now being educated to the exact temper 
of doing this. Is there such a perfect identity of inter- 
ests among the States to compose a new Union as to 
produce harmony only, and prevent renewed secession? 
Plainly, the central idea of secession is the essence of 
anarchy. 

"A majority held in check by Constitutional check 
limitation, and always changing easily with deliberate 
changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only 
true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it 
does, of necessity, fly to anarchy or despotism. Una- 
nimity is impossible ; the rule of a minority, as a per- 
manent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible. So that, 
rejecting the majority principle, anarchy or despotism, 
in some form, is all that is left. 

"I do not forget the position assumed by some, that 
Constitutional questions are to be decided by the 
Supreme Court, nor do I deny that such decisions must 
be binding in any case upon the parties to a suit, while 
they are also entitled to a very high respect and con- 
sideration in all parallel cases by all the other depart- 
ments of the Government; and while it is obviously 
possible that such a decision may be erroneous in any 



434 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

given case, still, the evil following it, being limited to 
that particular case, with the chance that it may be 
overruled, and never become a precedent for other 
cases, can better be borne than could the evils of a 
different practice. 

"At the same time, the candid citizen must confess 
that, if the policy of the Government upon the vital 
questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably 
fixed by the decisions of the Supreme Court the instant 
they are made, as in ordinary litigation between parties 
in personal action, the people will have ceased to be 
their own masters, unless having to that extent prac- 
tically resigned their Government into the hands of 
that eminent tribunal. 

"Nor is there in this view any assault upon the court 
or the judges. It is a duty from which they may not 
shrink, to decide cases properly brought before them ; 
and it is no fault of theirs if others seek to turn their 
decisions to political purposes. One section of our 
country believes slavery is right, and ought to be 
extended, while the other believes that it is wrong, and 
ought not to be extended; and this is the only sub- 
stantial dispute ; and the fugitive slave clause of the 
Constitution and the law for the suppression of the 
slave trade are each as well enforced, perhaps, as any 
law can ever be in a community where the moral sense 
of the people imperfectly supports the law itself. The 
great body of the people abide by the dry legal obliga- 
tion in both cases, and a few break over in each. 
This, I think, cannot be perfectly cured, and it would 
be worse, in both cases, after the separation of the sec- 
tions than before. The foreign slave trade, now 
imperfectly suppressed, would be ultimately revived, 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 435 

without restriction in one section ; while fugitive slaves, 
now only partially surrendered, would not be surren- 
dered at all by the other. 

WE CANNOT SEPARATE. 

"Physically speaking, we cannot separate; We can- 
not remove our respective sections from each other, nor 
build an impassable wall between them. A husband 
and wife may be divorced, and go out of the presence 
and beyond the reach of each other, but the different 
parts of our country cannot do this. They can but 
remain face to face, and intercourse, either amicable 
or hostile, must continue between them. Is it pos- 
sible, then, to make that intercourse more advantageous 
or more satisfactory after separation than before? 
Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make 
laws? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced 
between aliens than laws can among friends? Sup- 
pose you go to war, you cannot fight always; and 
when, after much loss on both sides, and no gain on 
either, you cease fighting, the identical questions as to 
terms of intercourse are again upon you. 

THE PEOPLE. 

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the 
people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow 
weary of the existing government, they can exercise 
their constitutional right of amending, or their revolu- 
tionary right to dismember or overthrow it. I cannot 
be ignorant of the fact that many worthy and patriotic 
citizens are desirous of having the national Constitu- 
tion amended. While I make no recommendation of 
amendment, I fully recognize the full authority of the 



436 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

people over the whole subject, to be exercised in either 
of the modes prescribed in the instrument itself, and I 
should, under existing circumstances, favor rather than 
oppose, a fair opportunity being afforded the people to 
act upon it. 

I will venture to add, that to me the convention 
mode seems preferable, in that it allows amendments 
to originate with the people themselves, instead of only 
permitting them to take or reject propositions orig- 
inated by others not especially chosen for the purpose, 
and which might not be precisely such as they would 
wish either to accept or refuse. I understand that a 
proposed amendment to the Constitution (which 
amendment, however, I have not seen) has passed 
Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government 
shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of 
States, including that of persons held to service. To 
avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart 
from my purpose not to speak of particular amend- 
ments, so far as to say, that, holding such a provision 
now to be implied Constitutional law, I have no objec- 
tions to its being made express and irrevocable. 

THE ULTIMATE JUSTICE OF THE PEOPLE. 

"The chief magistrate derives all his authority from 
the people, and they have conferred none upon him to 
fix the terms for the separation of the States. The 
people, themselves, also, can do this if they choose; 
but the Executive, as such, has nothing to do with it. 
His duty is to administer the present Government as it 
came to his hands, and to transmit it unimpaired by 
him to his successor. Why should there not be a 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 437 

patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? 
Is there any better or equal hope in the world? In our 
present differences is either party without faith of 
being in the right? If the Almighty Ruler of nations, 
with His eternal truth and justice, be on your side of 
the North, or on yours of the South, that truth and that 
justice will surely prevail by the judgment of this great 
tribunal, the American people. By the frame of the 
Government under which we live, this same people 
have wisely given their public servants but little power 
for mischief, and have with equal wisdom provided for 
the return of that little to their own hands at very short 
intervals. While the people retain their virtue and 
vigilance, no administration, by any extreme wicked- 
ness or folly, can very seriously injure the Government 
in the short space of four years. 

MY COUNTRYMEN, ONE AND ALL. 

"My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well 
upon this subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by 
taking time. 

"If there be an object to hurry any of you, in hot 
haste, to a step which you would never take deliber- 
ately, that object will be frustrated by taking time; but 
no good can be frustrated by it. 

"Such of you as are now dissatisfied still have the 
old Constitution unimpaired, and, on the sensitive 
point, the laws of your own framing under it ; while 
the new administration will have no immediate power, 
if it would, to change either. 

"If it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied 
hold the right side in the dispute, there is still no single 



438 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

reason for precipitate action. Intelligence, patriotism, 
Christianity, and a firm reliance upon Him who has 
never yet forsaken this favored land, are still com- 
petent to adjust, in the best way, all our present diffi- 
culty. 

"In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, 
and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. 
The Government will not assail you. 

"You can have no conflict without being yourselves 
the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven 
to destroy the Government; while I shall have the 
most solemn one to preserve, protect and defend it. 

"I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but 
friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion 
may have strained, it must not break our bonds of 
affection. 

"The mystic cords of memory, stretching from every 
battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and 
hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the 
chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely 
they will be, by the better angels of our nature." 



REPLY TO THE COMMITTEE FROM THE VIRGINIA 
CONVENTION, APRIL 20. 1861. 

"To Hon. Messrs. Preston, Stuart, and Randolph. — 
Gentlemen: Asa Committee of the Virginia Conven- 
tion, now in session, you present me a preamble and 
resolution in these words: 

" 'Whereas, In the opinion of this Convention, the 
uncertainty Which prevails in the public mind as to the 
policy which the Federal Executive intends to pursue 
towards the seceded States, is extremely injurious to 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 439 

the industrial and commercial interests of the country, as 
it tends to keep up an excitement which is unfavorable to 
the adjustment of the pending difficulties, and threatens 
a disturbance of the public peace : Therefore, Resolved, 
That a committee of three delegates be appointed to 
wait on the President of the United States, present to 
him this preamble, and respectfully ask him to com- 
municate to this Convention the policy which the 
Federal Executive intends to pursue in regard to the 
Confederate States.' 

"In answer, I have to say that, having, at the begin- 
ning of my official term, expressed my intended policy 
as plainly as I was able, it is with deep regret and 
mortification I now learn there is great and injurious 
uncertainty in the public mind as to what the policy is, 
and what course I intend to pursue. 

"Not having as yet seen occasion to change, it is now 
my purpose to pursue the course marked out in the 
Inaugural Address. I commend a careful considera- 
tion of the whole document as the best expression I can 
give to my purposes. 

"As I then and therein said, I now repeat, the power 
confided in me will be used to hold, occupy and possess 
property and places belonging to the Government, 
and to collect the duties and imports ; but beyond what 
is necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, 
no using of force against or among the people anywhere. 

"By the words property and places belonging to the 
Government, I chiefly allude to the military posts and 
property which were in possession of the Government 
when it came into my hands. But if, as now appears 
to be true, in pursuit of a purpose to drive the United 
States authority from those places, an unprovoked 



44o LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

assault has been made upon Fort Sumter, I shall hold 
myself at liberty to repossess it if I can, like places 
which had been seized before the Government was 
devolved upon me, and in any event I shall, to the best 
of my ability, repel force by force. In case it proves 
true that Fort Sumter has been assaulted as is 
reported, I shall, perhaps, cause the United States 
mails to be withdrawn from all the States which claim 
to have seceded, believing that commencement of 
actual war against the Government justifies and pos- 
sibly demands it. I scarcel) 7, need to say that I con- 
sider the military posts and property situated within 
the States which claim to have seceded, as yet belong- 
ing to the Government of the United States as much as 
they did before the supposed secession. 

"Whatever else I may do for the purpose, I shall 
not attempt to collect the duties and imposts by any 
armed invasion of any part of the country; not 
meaning by this, however, that I may not land a force 
deemed necessary to relieve a fort upon the border of 
the country. From the fact that I have quoted a part 
of the Inaugural Address, it must not be inferred that 
I repudiate any other part, the whole of which I 
re-affirm, except so far as what I now say of the mails 
may be regarded as a modification." 



PROCLAMATION BY THE PRESIDENT. 

Washington, August 16, 1861. 
By the President of the United States of America. 

A PROCLAMATION. 

Whereas, on the fifteenth day of April, the Presi- 
dent of the United States, in view of an insurrection 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 443 

against the laws, Constitution, and the Government of 
the United States, which had broken out within the 
States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, 
Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, and in pursuance of 
the provision of the act entitled an act to provide for 
calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the 
Union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions, and 
to repeal the act now in force for that purpose, approved 
February 28, 1795, did call forth the militia to suppress 
said insurrection and cause the laws of the Union to 
be duly executed, and the insurgents have failed to 
disperse by the time directed by the President ; and 
whereas such insurrection has since broken out and yet 
exists within the States of Virginia, North Carolina, 
Tennessee, and Arkansas ; and whereas the insurgents 
in all the said States claim to act under authority 
thereof, and such claim is not disclaimed or repudiated 
by the person exercising the functions of government, 
in such States or in the part or parts thereof, in which 
combinations exist, nor has such insurrection been sup- 
pressed by said States. Now, therefore, I, Abraham 
Lincoln, President of the United States, in pursuance 
of an act of Congress, passed July 18, 1861, do hereby 
declare that the inhabitants of the said States of 
Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, North Carolina, 
Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, 
Mississippi, and Florida (except the inhabitants of that 
part of Virginia lying west of the Alleghany Moun- 
tains, and of such other parts of that State, and the 
other States herein before named, as may maintain a 
loyal adhesion to the Union and the Constitution, or 
may be from time to time occupied and controlled by 
the forces engaged in the dispersion of said insurgents) 



444 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

are in a state of insurrection against the United States, 
and that all commercial intercourse between the same 
and the inhabitants thereof, with the exception afore- 
said, and the citizens of other States and other parts of 
the United States is unlawful and will remain unlawful 
until such insurrection [shall cease or has been 
suppressed; that all goods and chattels, wares and 
merchandise coming from any of said States, with the 
exception aforesaid, unto other parts of the United 
States, without the special license and permission of the 
President through the Secretary of the Treasury, or 
proceeding to any of said States, with the exceptions 
aforesaid, by land or water, together with the vessel or 
vehicle carrying the same, or conveying persons to or 
from said States ; with said exceptions, will be forfeited 
to the United States, and that from and after fifteen 
days from the issuing of this proclamation, all ships 
and vessels belonging in whole or in part to any 
citizen or inhabitant of any of said States, with 
said exceptions, found at sea or in any port of 
the United States, will be forfeited to the United 
States, and I hereby enjoin upon all District At- 
torneys, Marshals, and officers of the revenue, and 
of the military and naval forces of the United States, 
to be vigilant in the execution of said act, and in the 
enforcement of the penalties and forfeitures imposed 
or declared by it, leaving any party who may think 
himself aggrieved thereby to his application to the 
Secretary of the Treasury, for the remission of any 
penalty or for forfeiture, which the said Secretary is 
authorized by law to grant, if, in his judgment, the 
al circumstances of any case shall require such 
remission. 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 445 

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, 
and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. 
Done in the city of Washington, this 16th day of 
August, in the year of our Lord 186 1, and of the Inde- 
pendence of the United States eighty-sixth. 

Abraham Lincoln. 
By the President. 

Wm. H. Seward, Secretary of State. 



THE EMANCIPATION QUESTION IN MISSOURI. 

The following is a letter from the President to Gen- 
eral Fremont: 

Washington, D. C, Sept. n, 1861. 
Maj.-Gen. John C. Fremont. 

Sir : Yours of the 8th instant, in answer to mine of 
the 2d instant, was just received. Assured that you, 
upon the ground, could better judge of the necessities 
of your position, than I could at this distance, on see- 
ing your proclamation of August 30th, I perceived no 
general objection to it ; the particular clause, however, 
in relation to the confiscation of property and the 
liberation of slaves appeared to me objectionable in its 
non-conformity to the act of Congress, passed the 6th 
of last August, upon the same subjects, and hence I 
wrote you expressing my wish that that clause should 
be modified accordingly. Your answer just received 
expresses the preference on your part that I should 
make an open order for the modification, which I very 
cheerfully do. It is, therefore, ordered that the said 



446 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

clause of said proclamation be so modified, held, and 
construed as to conform with, and not to transcend, 
the provisions on the same subject contained in the act 
of Congress entitled, "An Act to confiscate property- 
used for insurrectionary purposes, ' ' approved August 
6, 1 86 1, and that said Act be published at length with 
this order. Your obedient servant, 

A. Lincoln. 



A PROCLAMATION. 

By the President of the United States of America. 

In pursuance of the sixth section of the act of Con- 
gress entitled, "An Act to Suppress Insurrection, to 
Punish Treason and Rebellion, to Seize and Confiscate 
the Property of Rebels, and for other purposes," 
approved July 17, 1862, and which act and the joint 
resolution explanatory therein, are herewith published, 
I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, 
do hereby proclaim to, and warn all persons within the 
contemplation of said sixth section, to cease participat- 
ing in, aiding, countenancing, or abetting the existing 
rebellion, or any rebellion against the Government of 
the United States, and to return to their allegiance to 
the United States, on pain of the forfeitures and seiz- 
ures :ts within and by said sixth section provided. 

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand 
and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. 

Done at the city of Washington, tins 25th day of July, 
in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 447 

and sixty-two, and of the Independence of the United 
States the eighty-seventh. 

By the President. A. Lincoln. 

Wm. H. Seward, Secretary of State. 



EXTRACTS UPON WHICH SEWARD BASED HIS "IRRE- 
PRESSIBLE-CONFLICT PLATFORM." 

"In my opinion, it [the slavery agitation] will not 
cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. 
"A house divided against itself cannot stand." 

"I believe the government cannot remain perma- 
nently half slave and half free. I do not expect the 
Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to 
fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It 
will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the 
opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of 
it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the 
belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or 
its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become 
alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new — 
North as well as South." 

"I have always hated slavery, I think, as much as 
any Abolitionist. I have been an old-line Whig. I 
have always hated it, and I always believed it in the 
course of ultimate extinction. 

"If I were in Congress and a vote should come up 
whether slavery should be prohibited in a new Terri- 
tory, in spite of the Dred Scott decision, I would vote 
that it should." 



448 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

"I nevertheless did not mean to go to the banks of 
the Ohio and throw missiles into Kentucky, to disturb 
them in their domestic institutions. 

"I believe that the right of property in a slave is not 
distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution." 



A PROCLAMATION. 

By the President of the United States of America: 

Whereas, It has become necessary to call into service, 
not only volunteers, but also portions of the military of 
the States by draft, in order to suppress the insurrec- 
tion existing in the United States, and disloyal persons 
are not adequately restrained by the ordinary processes 
of law from hindering these measures, and from giv- 
ing aid and comfort in various ways to the insurrection, 
and as a necessary measure for suppressing the same, 
all rebels and insurgents, their aiders and abettors 
within the United States, and all persons discouraging 
volunteer enlistments, resisting military drafts, or 
guilty of any disloyal practice affording aid and com- 
fort to the rebels against the authority of the United 
States, shall be subject to martial law, and liable to 
trial and punishment by courts-martial or military com- 
mission. 

Second, That the writ of habeas corpus is suspended 
in respect to all persons arrested, or who are now, or 
hereafter, during the rebellion, shall be, imprisoned in 
any fort, camp, arsenal, military prison, or other plaees 
of confinement, by any military confinement, or by the 
sentence of any court-martial or military commission. 

In witneS8 whereof I have hereunto set my hand, and 

caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 449 

Done at the city of Washington, this twenty-fourth 
day of September, in the year of our Lord one thou- 
sand eight hundred and sixty-two, and of the Inde- 
pendence of the United States the eighty-seventh. 

By the President. Abraham Lincoln. 

Wm. H. Seward, Secretary of State. 



A PROCLAMATION. 

On the sixth day of March last, by a special message, 
I recommended to Congress the adoption of a joint 
resolution, to be substantially as follows : 

"Resolved, That the United States ought toco-oper- 
ate with any State which may adopt a gradual abolish- 
ment of slavery, giving to such a State, in its discretion, 
compensation for the inconvenience, public and 
private, provided by such change of system." 

The resolution, in the language above quoted, was 
adopted by large majorities in both branches of Con- 
gress, and now stands an authentic, definite, and solemn 
proposal of the nation to the States and people most 
immediately interested in the subject matter. 

To the people of the States I now most earnestly 
appeal. 

I do not argue, I beseech you to make the argument 
for yourselves. 

You cannot, if you would, be blind to the signs of 
the times. I beg of you a calm and enlarged considera- 
tion of their import, ranging, if it may be, far above 
personal and partisan politics. 

This proposal makes common cause for a common 
object, casting no reproaches upon any. 



450 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

It acts not the Pharisee. The change it contem- 
plates would come gently as the dews of heaven, not 
rending or wrecking anything. 

Will you not embrace it? So much good has not 
been done by one effort in all past times, as in the 
Providence of God it is now your high privilege to do. 
May the vast future not have to lament that you have 
rejected it. 

By the President. Abraham Lincoln. 

Wm. H. Seward, Secretary of State. 

May 19, 1862. 

EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION. 

Issued by President Lincoln, January 1, 1863, at 
Washington. 

Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, 
in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred 
and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the Presi- 
dent of the United States, containing among other 
things, the following, to wit: 

"That on the first day of January, in the year of our 
Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all 
persons held as slaves within any State or designated 
part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in 
rebellion against the United States, shall be then, 
thenceforward, and forever free, and the Executive 
Government of the United States, including the military 
and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain 
the freedom of such persons, and will do HO act or acts 
to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts 
they may make for their actual freedom. 

••That the Executive will, on the first day of January 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 451 

aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and 
parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof 
respectively shall then be in rebellion against the 
United States; and the fact that any State or the 
people thereof shall on that day be in good faith rep- 
resented in the Congress of the United States, by 
members chosen thereto, at elections wherein a 
majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have 
participated, shall, in the absence of a strong counter- 
vailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that 
such State, and the people thereof, are not then in 
rebellion against the United States. ' ' 

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of 
the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested 
as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the 
United States in time of actual armed rebellion against 
the authority and Government of the United States, 
and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing 
said rebellion, do, on the first day of January, in the 
year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty- 
three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do, 
publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred 
days from the day first above mentioned, order and 
designate, as the States and parts of States wherein 
the people thereof respectively are this day in rebellion 
against the United States, the following, to- wit: 

Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes 
of St. Bernard, Plaquemine, Jefferson, St. John, St. 
Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terre 
Bonne, Lafourche, St. Marie, St. Martin, and Orleans, 
including the City of New Orleans), Mississippi, Ala- 
bama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Caro- 
lina and. Virginia (except the forty-eight counties 



452 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of 
Berkeley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, 
York, Princess Anne, and Norfolk, including the cities 
of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts 
are for the present left precisely as if this proclamation 
were not issued. 

And, by virtue of the power and for the purpose 
aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held 
as slaves within said designated States and parts of 
States, are, and henceforward shall be, free; and that 
the Executive Government of the United States, 
including the military and naval authorities thereof, 
will recognize and maintain the freedom of said per- 
sons. 

And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to 
be free, to abstain from all violence, unless in neces- 
sary self-defense ; and I recommend to them, that in 
all cases, when allowed, they labor faithfully for reason- 
able wages. 

And I further declare and make known that such 
persons of suitable condition will be received into the 
armed service of the United States, to garrison forts, 
positions, stations and other places, and to man vessels 
of all sorts in said service. 

And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act 
of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon mili- 
tary necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of 
mankind, and the gracious favor of the Almighty God. 
In testimony whereof, 1 have hereunto set my 
name, and caused the seal of the United States to be 
affixed. 

Done at the City of Washington, this first 
day of January, in the year of OUT Lord one 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 453 

[L. S.] thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and 
of the Independence of the United States the 
eighty-seventh. 
By the President. Abraham Lincoln. 

William H. Seward, Secretary of State. 



LINCOLN'S SPEECH AT GETTYSBURG. 

Delivered at the dedication of the Gettysburg 
National Cemetery on the Gettysburg battle-field, 
November 19, 1863: 

"Ladies and Gentlemen: Four score and seven years 
ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a 
new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the 
proposition that all men are created equal. Now we 
are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that 
nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, 
can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field 
of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of 
that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave 
their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether 
fitting and proper that we should do this. 

' ' But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we can- 
not consecrate, we cannot hallow, this ground. The 
brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have 
consecrated it far above our power to add or detract. 
The world will little note, or long remember, what we 
say here ; but it can never forget what they did here. 

"It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here 
to the unfinished work which they who fought here 
have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to 
be here dedicated to the great task remaining before 
us, that from these honored dead we take increased 



454 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full 
measure of devotion ; that we here highly resolve that 
these dead shall not have died in vain ; that this nation, 
under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that 
the Government of the people, by the people, and for 
the people, shall not perish from the earth. ' ' 



THE RIGHTS OF LABOR (EXTRACT), APRIL, 1864. 

"To New York Workmen's Association: The most 
notable feature of the disturbance in your city last 
summer was the hanging of some working people by 
other working people. 

"It should never be so. The strongest bond of 
human sympathy outside of the family relation should 
be one uniting all working people of all nations, 
tongues, and kindreds, nor should this lead to a war 
on property or owners of property. 

"Property is the fruit of labor. Property is desir- 
able — is a positive good in the world. That some 
should be rich shows that others may become rich, and 
hence is just encouragement to industry and enter- 
prise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the 
house of another, but let him labor diligently and build 
one for himself, thus by example assuring himself that 
his own shall be safe from violence when built." 



RESPONSE TO SERENADE FROM MARYLANDERS, 
WASHINGTON, NOVEMBER, 1864. 

"I am notified that this is a compliment paid me by 
the Loyal Marylanders resident in this district. 

"I infer that the adoption of the new Constitution 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES 455 

for the State furnishes the occasion ; and that in your 
view the extirpation of slavery constitutes the chief 
merit of the new Constitution. 

Most heartily do I congratulate you and Maryland, 
and the nation, and the world, upon the event. I 
regret that it did not occur two years sooner, which, I 
am sure, would have saved the nation more money than 
would have met all the private loss incident to the 
measure ; but it has come at last, and I sincerely hope 
its friends may realize all their anticipations of good 
from it, and that its opponents may, by its effect, be 
agreeably and profitably disappointed. A word upon 
another subject: 

"Something said by the Secretary of State in his 
recent speech at Auburn has been construed by some 
into a threat that, if I shall be beaten at the election, 
I will, between then and the end of my Constitutional 
term, do what I may be able to ruin the Government. 

"Others regard the fact that the Chicago Convention 
adjourned, not sine die, but to meet again, if called to 
do so, by a particular individual, as the ultimatum of 
a purpose that if the nominee shall be elected he will at 
once seize control of the Government. I hope the 
good people will not allow themselves to suffer any 
uneasiness on either point. I am struggling to main- 
tain the Government, not to overthrow it. I therefore 
say that, if I shall live, I shall remain President until 
the 4th of next March. And whoever shall be consti- 
tutionally elected therefor in November, shall be duly 
installed as President on the 4th of March, and that in 
the interval I shall do my utmost that whoever is to 
hold the helm for the next voyage shall start with the 
best possible chance to save the ship. 



456 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

"This is due to the people, both in principle and 
under the Constitution. Their will, constitutionally 
expressed, is the ultimate law of all. 

"If they should deliberately resolve to have imme- 
diate peace, even at the loss of their country, and their 
liberties, I know not the power or the right to resist 
them. 

"It is their own business, and they must do as they 
please with their own. I believe, however, they are 
all resolved to preserve their country and their liberty ; 
and in this, in office or out of it, I am resolved to 
stand by them. I may add, that in this purpose to 
save the country and its liberties, no class of people 
seem so nearly unanimous as the soldiers in the field 
and the seamen afloat. Do they not have the hardest 
of it? Who should quail when they do not? God bless 
the soldiers and seamen and all their brave com- 
manders. "Abraham Lincoln." 



THE PRESIDENT TO LIEUTENANT-GENERAL GRANT. 

Executive Mansion, Washington, April 30, 1S64. 
Lieutcnant-General Grant: 

Not expecting to see you before the spring cam- 
paign opens, I wish to express in this way my entire 
satisfaction with what you have done up to this time, 
so far as I understand it. 

The particulars of your plan I neither know, nor 
seek to know. You arc vigilant and self-reliant, and, 
pleased with this, I wish not to obtrude any restraints 
01 Constraints upon you. While I am very anxious that 
any great disaster, or capture of our men in great num- 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 457 

bers, shall be avoided, I know that these points are 
less likely to escape your attention than they would be 
mine. If there be anything wanting, which is within 
my power to give, do not fail to let me know it. 

And now, with a brave army and a just cause, may 
God sustain you. Yours very truly, 

Abraham Lincoln. 



SECOND NOMINATION. 

Executive Mansion, Washington, June 27, 1864. 

Hon. William Dennison and Others, a Committee of 
the National Union Convention. 

Gentlemen : Your letter of the 14th instant, formally 
notifying me that I have been nominated by the Con- 
vention you represent for the Presidency of the United 
States for four years from the 4th of March next, has 
been received. The nomination is gratefully accepted, 
as the Resolutions of the Convention — called the plat- 
form — are heartily approved. 

While the resolution in regard to supplanting of 
Republican government upon the Western continent is 
fully concurred in, there might be some misunderstand- 
ing were I not to say that the position of the Govern- 
ment in relation to the action of France in Mexico, as 
assumed through the State Department and endorsed 
by the Convention, among the measures and acts of the 
Executive, will be faithfully maintained so long as the 
state of facts shall leave that position permanent and 
applicable. 

I am especially gratified that the soldier and the sea- 
man were not forgotten by the Convention, as they 



458 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

forever must and will be remembered by the grateful 
country for whose salvation they devoted their lives. 

Thanking you for the kind and complimentary terms 
in which you have communicated the nomination and 
other proceedings of the Convention, I subscribe 
myself, Your obedient servant, 

Abraham Lincoln. 



LINCOLN'S SECOND INAUGURAL. 
Delivered March 4, 1865, at Washington. 

WITH MALICE TOWARDS NONE, WITH CHARITY FOR ALL. 

"Fellow-Countrymen: At this second appearing to 
take the oath of the Presidential office, there is less 
occasion for an extended address than there was at the 
first. Then, a statement somewhat in detail of a course 
to be pursued seemed very fitting and proper. Now, 
at the expiration of four years, during which public 
declarations have been constantly called forth on every 
point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs 
the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, 
little that is new could be presented. 

"The progress of our arms, upon which all else 
chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to 
myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and 
encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no 
prediction in regard to it is ventured. 

"On the occasion corresponding to this four years 
ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impend- 
ing civil war. All dreaded it; all sought to avoid it. 
While the inaugural address was being delivered from 
this place, devoted altogether to save the Union with- 




SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 461 

out war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to 
destroy it without war — seeking to dissolve the Union 
and divide the effects by negotiation. Both parties 
deprecated war; but one of them would make war 
rather than let the nation survive, and the other would 
accept war rather than let it perish ; and the war came. 

"One-eighth of the whole population were colored 
slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but 
localized in the southern part of it. These slaves con- 
stituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew 
that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. 
To strengthen, perpetuate and extend this interest, 
was the object for which the insurgents would rend the 
Union even by war, while the Government claimed no 
right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlarge- 
ment of it. 

"Neither party expected for the war the magnitude 
or the duration which it has already attained. Neither 
anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease 
with, or even before, the conflict itself would cease. 
Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less 
fundamental and astounding. 

"Both read the same Bible and pray to the same 
God, and each invokes his aid against the other. It 
may seem strange that any man should dare to ask a 
just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the 
sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not, that 
we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be 
answered. That of neither has been answered fully. 
The Almighty has His own purposes. 4 Woe unto the 
world because of offenses, for it must needs be that 
offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the 
offense cometh. ' If we shall suppose that American 



462 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

slavery is one of these offenses, which in the Provi- 
dence of God must needs come, but which, having con- 
tinued through His appointed time, He now wills to 
remove, and that He gives to both North and South this 
terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the 
offense came, shall we discern therein any departure 
from those divine attributes which the believers in a 
living God always ascribe to Him? 

"Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that 
this mighty scourge of war may soon pass away. Yet, 
if God wills that it continue until the wealth piled by 
the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unre- 
quited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood 
drawn by the lash shall be paid by another drawn 
with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, 
so still it must be said, that 'the judgments of the Lord 
are true and righteous altogether. ' 

"With malice towards none, with charity for all, 
with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the 
right, let us finish the work we are in, to bind up the 
nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne 
the battle, and for his widow and orphans, to do all 
which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting 
peace among ourselves and with all nations." 



PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S LAST SPEECH. 

A carefully worded, wise and memorable production, 
delivered Tuesday evening, April n, 1865, in response 
to a Berenade at the White House: 

"Fellow Citizens: We meet this evening not in sor- 
row, but in gladness of heart. The evacuation of 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 463 

Petersburg and Richmond, and the surrender of the 
principal insurgent army, give hope of a righteous and 
speedy peace whose joyous expression cannot be 
restrained. In the midst of this, however, He from 
whom all blessings flow must not be forgotten. A call 
for a national thanksgiving is being prepared, and will 
be duly promulgated. Nor must those whose harder 
part gives us the cause of rejoicing be overlooked. 
Their honors must not be parceled out with the others. 
I myself was near the front, and had the high pleasure 
of transmitting much of the good news to you; but no 
part of the honor, for plan or execution, is mine. To 
General Grant, his skillful officers and brave men, all 
belongs. The gallant navy stood ready, but was not in 
reach to take active part. 

"By these recent successes, the re-inauguration of 
the national authority, reconstruction, which has had a 
large share of thought from the first, is pressed much 
more closely upon our attention. It is fraught with 
great difficulty. Unlike the case of a war between 
independent nations, there is no authorized organ for 
us to treat with. No man has authority to give up the 
rebellion for any other man. We simply must begin 
with and mold from disorganized and discordant 
elements. Nor is it a small additional embarrassment 
that we, the loyal people, differ among ourselves as to 
the mode, manner and means of reconstruction. 

"As a general rule, I abstain from reading the 
reports of attacks upon myself, wishing not to be pro- 
yoked by that to which I cannot properly offer an 
answer, In spite of this precaution, however, it comes 
to my knowledge that I am much censured from some 
supposed, agency in setting up and seeking to sustain 



464 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

the new State Government of Louisiana. In this I 
have done just so much, and no more than, the pub- 
lic knows. In the annual message of December, 1863, 
and accompanying proclamation, I presented a plan 
of reconstruction (as the phrase goes) which I prom- 
ised, if adopted by any State, should be acceptable to, 
and sustained by, the Executive Government of the 
nation. I distinctly stated that this was not the only 
plan which might possibly be acceptable ; and I also 
distinctly protested that the Executive claimed no right 
to say when or whether members should be admitted 
to seats in Congress from such States. This plan was, 
in advance, submitted to the then Cabinet, and dis- 
tinctly approved by every member of it. One of them 
suggested that I should then, and in that connection, 
apply the Emancipation Proclamation to the heretofore 
excepted parts of Virginia and Louisiana; that I 
should drop the suggestion about apprenticeship for 
freed people, and that I should omit the protest against 
my own power, in regard to the admission of members 
of Congress, but even he approved every part and par- 
cel of the plan which has since been employed or 
touched by the actions of Louisiana. 

"The new Constitution of Louisiana, declaring 
emancipation for the whole State, practically applies 
the proclamation to the part previously excepted. It 
does not adopt apprenticeship to freed people, and it is 
silent, as it could not well be otherwise, about the 
admission of members of Congress. So that, as it 
applies to Louisiana, every member of the Cabinet 
fully approved tin- plan. The message went to Con- 
gress, and 1 received many commendations of the plan, 
written and verbal; and not a single objection to it, 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 465 

from any professed emancipationist, came to my knowl- 
edge, until after the news reached Washington that the 
people of Louisiana had begun to move in accordance 
with it. From about July, 1862, I had corresponded 
with different persons supposed to be interested, seek- 
ing a reconstruction of a State Government for Louisi- 
ana. When the message of 1863, with the plan before 
mentioned, reached New Orleans, General Banks wrote 
me he was confident that the people, with his military 
co-operation, would reconstruct substantially on that 
plan. I wrote him, and some of them, to try it. They 
tried it, and the result is known. Such only has been 
my agency in getting up the Louisiana Government. 
As to sustaining it, my promise is out, as before stated. 

"But, as bad promises are better broken than kept, 
I shall treat this as a bad promise, and break it, when- 
ever I shall be convinced that keeping it is adverse to 
the public interest. But I have not yet been so con- 
vinced. 

"I have been shown a letter on this subject, sup- 
posed to be an able one, in which the writer expresses 
regret that my mind has not seemed to be definitely 
fixed on the question whether the seceded States, so 
called, are in the Union or out of it. It would, per- 
haps, add astonishment to his regret to learn that, 
since I have found professed Union men endeavoring 
to make that question, I have purposely forborne any 
public expression upon it. As appears to me, that 
question has not been, nor yet is, a practically material 
one, and that any discussion of it, while it thus remains 
practically immaterial, could have no effect other than 
the mischievous one of dividing our friends. 

"As yet, whatever it may hereafter become, that 



466 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

question is bad, as the basis of a controversy, and good 
for nothing at all — a merely pernicious abstraction. 
We all agree that the seceded States, so called, are out 
of their proper relation to the Union, and that the sole 
object of the Government, civil and military, in regard 
to those States, is to again get them into their proper 
practical relation. I believe it is not only possible, 
but, in fact, easier to do this without deciding, or even 
considering, whether these States have ever been out 
of the Union, than with it. Finding themselves safely 
at home, it would be utterly immaterial whether they 
had ever been abroad. Let us all join in doing the 
acts necessary to restoring the proper practical rela- 
tions between these States and the Union, and each 
forever after innocently indulge his own opinion 
whether, in doing the acts, he brought the States from 
without into the Union, or only gave them proper 
assistance, they never having been out of it. 

"The amount of constituency, so to speak, on which 
the new Louisiana Government rests would be more 
satisfactory to all if it contained fifty, thirty, or even 
twenty thousand, as it really does. It is also unsatis- 
factory to some that the election franchise is not given 
to the colored man. I would myself prefer that it were 
now conferred on the very intelligent and those who 
serve our cause as soldiers. Still, the question is 
not whether the Louisiana Government, as it stands, 
is quite all that is desirable. The question is, 'Will 
it be wiser to take it as it is, or to reject and dis- 
perse it?' 

"Can Louisiana be brought into proper practical rela- 
tion with the Union sooner by sustaining or discarding 
the new State Government? 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 467 

"Some twelve thousand voters in the heretofore 
Slave State of Louisiana have sworn allegiance to the 
Union, assumed to be the rightful political power of 
the State, held elections, organized a State Govern- 
ment, adopted a Free State constitution, giving the 
benefit of public schools equally to black and white, 
and empowering the Legislature to confer elective 
franchise upon the colored man. The Legislature has 
already voted to ratify the Constitutional amendment 
passed by Congress, abolishing slavery throughout the 
nation. These twelve thousand persons are thus fully 
committed to the Union and to perpetual freedom in 
the States — committed to the very things, and nearly 
all the things, the nation wants — and they ask the 
nation's recognition and its assistance to make good 
that committal. 

"Now, if we reject and spurn them, we do our 
utmost to disorganize and disperse them. We, in 
effect, say to the white men: 'You are worthless, or 
worse; we will neither help you, nor be helped by 
you.' To the blacks we say: 'This cup of liberty 
which these, your old masters, hold to your lips, we 
will dash from you, and leave you to the chances of 
gathering the spilled and scattered contents in some 
vague and undefined when, where and how. ' If this 
course, discouraging and paralyzing both white and 
black, has any tendency to bring Louisiana into proper 
practical relations with the Union, I have, so far, been 
unable to perceive it. If, on the contrary, we recog- 
nize and sustain the new government of Louisiana, the 
converse of all this is made true. 

"We encourage the hearts and nerve the arms of 
the twelve thousand to adhere to their work, and argue 



468 LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 

for it, and proselyte for it, fight for it, and feed it, and 
grow it and ripen it to a complete success. The colored 
man, too, seeing all united for him, is inspired with 
vigilance, and energy, and daring the same end. 
Grant that he desires elective franchise, will he not 
obtain it sooner by saving the already advanced steps 
towards it, than by running backward over them? 
Concede that the new government of Louisiana is only 
as to what it should be as the egg is to the fowl, we 
shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than 
by smashing it. [Laughter.] 

"Again, if we reject Louisiana, we also reject one 
vote in favor of the proposed amendment to the 
National Constitution. To meet this proposition, it 
has been argued that no more than three-fourths of 
those States which have not attempted secession are 
necessary to validly ratify the amendment. I do not 
commit myself against this, further than to say that 
such a ratification would be questionable, and sure to 
be persistently questioned, while ratification by three- 
fourths of all the States would be unquestioned and 
unquestionable. 

"I repeat the question: 'Can Louisiana be brought 
into proper practical relation with the Union sooner by 
sustaining or by discarding her new State Govern- 
ment?' What has been said of Louisiana will apply 
generally to other States. And yet so great peculiar- 
ities pertain to each State, and such important and 
sudden changes occur in the same State, and, withal, 
so new and unprecedented is the whole case, that no 
exclusive and inflexible plan can safely be prescribed 
as to details and collaterals. Such exclusive and 
inflexible plan would surely become a new entangle- 



LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECHES. 469 

ment. Important principles may, and must be, flex- 
ible. 

"In the present situation, as the phrase goes, it may 
be my duty to make some new announcement to the 
people of the South. I am considering, and shall not 
fail to act, when satisfied that action will be proper." 






LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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